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Had / Has -Gmat Prep test 1

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Had / Has -Gmat Prep test 1

by khurram » Sun Jun 01, 2008 2:06 pm
Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside sao polo,brazil, their descendants,popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern texas.

a)
b) In less than 35 years since releasing African honeybees outside sao polo,brazil,
c) in less than the 35 years since African honeybees had been released outside sao polo,
brazil,
d) It took less than 35 years from the release of African honeybees outside sao polo, brazil ,when

OA is A

I am trying to understand the sentence construction- how can HAD be used
timeline- they were released and had migrated.

where is the simple past here.

Thanks
Khurram
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by thisisvb » Wed Jul 02, 2008 2:52 am
hi khurram, I also selected choice D because of the past perfect construction (had migrated) in that latter half of the sentence. it seemed to contain the missing simple past.

were you able to figure out why A is the correct ans?
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by Orwell_Jetski » Wed Jul 02, 2008 3:02 pm
I agree that (A) seems slightly problematic becasue of the usage of past perfect (had) instead of the expected past.

But, all other choices are messy. With respect to (D), my view of the problem is :- the usage of past (it took) & past perfect (had) does not make this a correct combination of past & past-perfect : the incident of 'releasing of the honeybee' had happened 35 years before the incident of the descedent reaching south texas - but the usage of took & had in (D) puts this opposite It took less than 35 years needs a 'for' - as otherwise It took less than 35 years is not qualified.

This leaves (A) as the least messy choice.
It will be useful if some one can pls clarify on the past perfect usage in (A).
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by Vignesh.4384 » Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:28 pm
Hi,

I would have chose A.

reason: This sentence describes 2 actions. 1)release of African honeybees and 2)migrated as far north as southern texas.

According 2 Manhattan Verbal guide : If more than one action in a sentence occured in the past, you must use the past perfect tense.

In the above sentence both the actions have occured in the past so they have used the past perfect form i guess.

Consider this sentence: I think that ancient people had believed in many gods.

the above examples has 2 actions but only one occured in the past so the the above sentence is wrong. Here i guess past perfect is unacceptable.
it should have been.

I think that ancient people believed in many gods.

The explanation i could think of ..
Please correct me if i am wrong..

Regards,
Vignesh
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by Aldiablo » Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:45 pm
Vignesh.4384 wrote:Hi,

I would have chose A.

reason: This sentence describes 2 actions. 1)release of African honeybees and 2)migrated as far north as southern texas.

According 2 Manhattan Verbal guide : If more than one action in a sentence occured in the past, you must use the past perfect tense.

In the above sentence both the actions have occured in the past so they have used the past perfect form i guess.

Consider this sentence: I think that ancient people had believed in many gods.

the above examples has 2 actions but only one occured in the past so the the above sentence is wrong. Here i guess past perfect is unacceptable.
it should have been.

I think that ancient people believed in many gods.

The explanation i could think of ..
Please correct me if i am wrong..

Regards,
Vignesh
Well as far as origin of perfect tenses is concerned, I have read somewhere, perfect tenses came into existence when two events happen in past or future then you need some form of tense to indicate which of them happened previous and which of them happed latter. So, to use past perfect and future perfect you must be 100 percent sure which event happened before. Although, here I don't think it can be said for sure that these events happened at different times. May be they happened at the same time, so you may prefer to use simple past here.

Still confused with usage of past perfect here.
When you think you can or you cannot, you are generally correct.
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by thisisvb » Thu Jul 03, 2008 5:50 am
D, E are wrong because 'it' has no referent.. right?
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by Vignesh.4384 » Thu Jul 03, 2008 6:46 am
Hi Aldiablo,

Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside sao polo,brazil, their descendants,popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern texas.

In the above main sentence sentence :

Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside.. is one action that takes place in the past at one point of time

their descendants,popularly known as killer bees,[/i] .... is another action that takes place in the past in some other point of time . I say this because the african honey bee and their descendants could not hav lived at the same time logically.

Please correct me if i am wrong .

Regards,
Vignesh
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by kiranlegend » Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:14 am
Vignesh.4384 wrote:Hi Aldiablo,

Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside sao polo,brazil, their descendants,popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern texas.

In the above main sentence sentence :

Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside.. is one action that takes place in the past at one point of time

their descendants,popularly known as killer bees,[/i] .... is another action that takes place in the past in some other point of time . I say this because the african honey bee and their descendants could not hav lived at the same time logically.

Please correct me if i am wrong .

Regards,
Vignesh
I agree with Vignesh:)
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by abhaypratapsingh » Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:54 am
past perfect and past tense is used to show sequence of events, but the past tense may be omitted in case you have other words like "before","after" to show sequence of event.


tnks,
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