The footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, Brooks

IMO, A is correct.

A)The footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, Brooks Sports has for most of its history made shoes for a variety of sports, but in 2000 it narrowed its focus considerably to concentrate on running shoes.
Correct. Present perfect: has made shoes... is correct.

B)Brooks Sports, the footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, has for most of its history been making shoes for a variety of sports, but in 2000 it considerably narrowed its focus to concentrate on running shoes.
Wrong. Present perfect continuous is not necessary

C)The footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, Brooks Sports, has for most of their history made shoes for a variety of sports, but in 2000 they narrowed its focus considerably to concentrate on running shoes.
Wrong. S-V problem.

D)The footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, Brooks Sports, has for most of their history made shoes for a variety of sports, but in 2000 they considerably narrowed down its focus to concentrate on running shoes.
Wrong. S-V problem.

E)Brooks Sports, the footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, had for most of its history made shoes for a variety of sports, but in 2000 it narrowed its focus considerably to concentrate on running shoes.
Wrong. Past perfect is not necessary

Its indeed a good question..Close call between B and E....
One reason i eliminated coz we cannot use a proper time ie 1940 with present perfect tense.....
Bt E makes sense....as frm meaning point of view it says sth was done in past bt in the year 200o the focussed on sthn else....so to make it a proper timeline we need past perfect..

Consider kudos if my post helps!!!!!1

Archit

A,C and D is out because of modifier error.Between b and e ,e is the correct answer.b is out present perfect continuous tense is used.

Consider A

A)The footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, Brooks Sports has for most of its history made shoes for a variety of sports, but in 2000 it narrowed its focus considerably to concentrate on running shoes.

then

A)The footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914,........................................................................................, but in 2000 it narrowed its focus considerably to concentrate on running shoes.

It does not make sense at all

You must need the subject. As in quant, start from what you KNOW

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION

Solution: This problem tests Verb Form and your ability to incorporate modifiers elegantly. Because the sentence compares two different times in the past—the period of broad manufacturing from 1914 to 2000, and the moment in 2000 when the company narrowed its focus—the past perfect (“had…made”) is appropriate. Only answer (E) features the past perfect. Although the original sentence also uses the definite article at the beginning (“The footware and apparel brand”), making it sound like Brooks Sports was the only footware and apparel brand founded in 1914. The correct answer, (E), swaps the position of the subject and its modifier to place more emphasis on the brand name rather than something that incidentally describes it. Answer (B) changes the verb form to the present perfect continuous (“has…been making”), which is inappropriate in this context. Answers (C) and (D) introduce pronoun errors by using the plural pronouns “their” and “they” to refer to the singular company name “Brooks Sports.”

I understand that B is wrong because of present perfect Continuous tense but let's forget that for the moment.
My question is which is a better construction :
"it considerably narrowed its focus to concentrate" OR " it narrowed its focus considerably to concentrate"
I will pick the previous one as verb is properly modified by adverb.
Also will "B" be a valid answer if it would be something like this :

Brooks Sports, the footwear and apparel brand founded in 1914, had for most of its history been making shoes for a variety of sports, but in 2000 it considerably narrowed its focus to concentrate on running shoes

Guys I am struggling with tenses.I almost get everything wrong.
Any help/guidance would be much appreciated.
Thanks

IMO the present perfect tense is perfectly valid here.

The present perfect can be used because the company is most likely still manufacturing all types of sport shoes. Only it's focus has considerably changed. So the fact that it has been manufacturing sport shoes still holds true.

Posted from my mobile device

Please help in choosing among A, B & E.

I chose option B here.
I think just because concentration on one product was considerably increased doesn't mean that they have stopped making shoes for variety of sports. The 'Has been' here is justified because the action started in the past and is still continuing in the present.
Can somebody please let me know if there is a flaw in my reasoning.

PSP92, of course concentrating on running shoes does not imply that the production of other varieties of shoes has stopped completely. The way that sentence is structured (especially with the use of but) implies that something changed in 2000. The sentences gives the impression that the company is not as diversified as it used to be.