99ramanmehta wrote:
AbhishekDhanraJ72 wrote:
i thought because of "mountain gorillas is declining" so population "halved". since population halved is a result then it must be in present tense that's why i did not choose D. what's wrong with my reasoning???
Yes, according to the statement it 'is' declining but the population 'halved' in a period (1960-1980) in the past and therefore 'was' is apt.
Agreed!
For example, when we say, "The glaciers are melting," we are describing an ongoing action--one that started in the past and that will continue (for an unknown amount of time) into the future. Has the melting been going on for a few days? Weeks? Years? Decades? Centuries? How long will this continue? We don't know based on the verb tense, and we have to rely on any contextual clues.
Similarly, the verb "is declining" represents an ongoing action -- one that is occurring now and that will continue into the future. Based on the context, we know that this action has being going on since
at least 1960, that the action is still going on today, and that the action will continue for an unspecified/unknown amount of time.
On the other hand, the verb "was halved" refers to a specific time in the past (1960-1980), a
subset of the time frame of the verb "is declining."
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