EducationAisle wrote:
Prajjwal226 wrote:
Hi , I recently came across these two sentences (correct sentence is the 2nd one) from an
Egmat webinar:
(1) Until a strict schedule was imposed, kids had been allowed to watch television for hours at a stretch.
(2) Until a strict schedule was imposed, kids were allowed to watch television for hours at a stretch.
In the first sentence, 'had been' indicates that the action 'kids had been allowed to watch television' was completed by a specific time in the past (it was completed before the strict schedule was imposed.
Since there are two events, and the event of imposing a strict schedule is the later event, I am not sure why 'had been' is incorrect here.
Can you please help
Actually I would be curious to know as well. What explanation does
eGMAT provide, on this?
The instructor said that it's not correct to use 'had been' in this sentence because it indicates that the kids were already not allowed to watch television for long hours when the strict schedule was imposed. So it is not logical to say that the authorities imposed a strict schedule if the kids are already not allowed to watch television for long hours.
Another example with the same analogy was provided in the webinar:
(1) Joe asked for a slice from the pizza that Amy had eaten (incorrect)
(2) Joe asked for a slice from the pizza that Amy was eating (correct)
In the example, the usage of 'had been' is clearly incorrect since it indicates that Joe asked for a slice from the pizza that had ALREADY been eaten by Amy.
However, the explanation of why 'had been' is incorrect in the first example is still not clear to me.