Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the

A - this is a tense problem

"Had been" - happened before the team "said"
need the "had" otherwise we don't know which action happened first

Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list among starting players, the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians.

If you look at the non underlined part, you see "would". This "would" signifies that the team did the explaining in the past and during that explaning it said that it will make some changes in the future.

Thats why had been is the only correct option.

I was trolling through the forums and found this post. I remember fretting over this and "supposedly Mediterranean predecessors" question. (OG questions)

This will definitely help:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/og- ... -t485.html

cheers

Hi All,

Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list among starting players, the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians.


Meaning Analysis:

The recent growing injury list had been the one of the many difficulties of the minor league baseball team. So it said that it would start a search for better physical trainers and physicians.

Error Analysis:

• Singular pronoun “its” correctly refers to its singular antecedent “the minor league baseball team”.
• “The stated problems” existed before the team decided to do something about it. In fact, there is a causal relationship here. Since the team found this problem of recent growing injury list among startling players, he decided to begin a month-long search. ‘reported’ about it.Hence, use of past perfect tense for describing “one of its many difficulties” is correct. It correctly shows the sequencing of the events in the sentence.
• Adjective “recent” correctly modifies noun “injury list”. Notice here that both “recent” and “growing” are adjectives for the noun “injury list”. The “injury list” is recent and it has been growing.
• No errors.

PoE:

A. its many difficulties had been the recent: Correct for reasons stated above.

B. its many difficulties has been the recently: Incorrect.
1. The difficulty occurred before the team took an action and “said that it would start a search””. Present perfect tense suggests problems happened after “said”. This sequencing is incorrect.Thus, past perfect tense is required here.
2. There is a difference between the meanings of “recent” and “recently”. “recent growing injury list” means the injury list is recent and it is growing. “recently growing injury list” that the list has started growing very recently. Per the original sentence, it is the “recent injury list”. Hence use of “recently” is incorrect.

C. its many difficulties is the recently: Inocrrect.
1. Same “recently” error as in choice B.
2. Simple present tense “is” suggests that the problems occurred after the retailer “said”. This verb sequencing is wrong.Same verb tense error as in choice B.

D. their many difficulties is the recent: Incorrect.
1. Plural pronoun “their” does not agree with singular antecedent “team”.
2. Simple present tense “is” suggests that the problems occurred after the retailer “said”. This verb sequencing is wrong.Same verb tense error as in Choice B.

E. their many difficulties had been the recent: Incorrect. Plural pronoun “their” does not agree with singular antecedent “team”.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi Shraddha,

my doubt was how can a recent (Of the immediate past or just previous to the present time) thing still be growing??
its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list
So I did not choose past perfect tense is option A

I'm going to side with dentobizz on this one (see below). It would certainly help if we had an OA, but if the answer is supposed to be A, as it seems to be in the other thread I can find, then I don't think the problem is valid. We can have a "recent extended sales slump," but not a "recent growing injury list." If we want to say we have a "recent injury list," what purpose does "growing" serve at that point? The sentence only makes sense if we say that the list is "recently growing."

As for the past perfect, it's true that the problem began before the team made the announcement. Therefore, technically, we might get away with the past perfect. However, we typically use past perfect to emphasize the relationships of different events in time. We don't need to emphasize here that the problem was going on before the announcement--that's clear from the context, and as dentobizz says, we certainly don't want to imply that the problem is over.

The only reasonable objection someone might make to B is that it uses the present perfect in conjunction with the simple past. However, if the team recently made the announcement, and the problem is still ongoing, then the present perfect makes sense, and it's certainly better than the simple present in C.

Of course, D&E are out because of "their."

This is the point I had been making, I think the question is faulty and has been built on the MGMT mock question posted a few post earlier (extended sales slump...).
I hope the original posted sites the source and OA for this one.

Thanks Dmitry for your explanation.

"Recent" doesn't have to refer to something that is over--it can refer to something current or ongoing, as long as it is relatively new.

By the way, the other question you're referring to ("extended sales slump") isn't ours--it's #48 in the 2nd edition Verbal Review.

Clearly choice A is correct.

its refers to minor league baseball team; We can take the clue from the second' it' that follows 'said' in the sentence.
So, D and E are out.

C is out because the overall tense of the sentence in past tense as indicated by the non-underlined part of the sentence.

Between A and B , A is correct-

In B, the tense has wrongly been changed to present perfect which is wrong.
Moreover , recently is an adverb which seems to modify the participle verb Growing which is actually modifying the noun injury list.

But we need to modify the NOUN PHRASE- growing injury list and so we need an adjective-RECENT.

Hope it helps!!!

Kudos if you like the post

Clearly choice A is correct.

its refers to minor league baseball team; We can take the clue from the second' it' that follows 'said' in the sentence.
So, D and E are out.

C is out because the overall tense of the sentence in past tense as indicated by the non-underlined part of the sentence.

Between A and B , A is correct-

In B, the tense has wrongly been changed to present perfect which is wrong.
Moreover , recently is an adverb which seems to modify the participle verb Growing which is actually modifying the noun injury list.

But we need to modify the NOUN PHRASE- growing injury list and so we need an adjective-RECENT.

Hope it helps!!!

Kudos if you like the post

Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list among starting players, the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians.

(A) its many difficulties had been the recent

(B) its many difficulties has been the recently

(C) its many difficulties is the recently

(D) their many difficulties is the recent

(E) their many difficulties had been the recent

At the risk of sounding very ignorant, may I ask why can't C be the correct answer? Is it the verb form? Does that mean that with "will" in place of "would" C can be the right answer choice.
And also why is 'recently growing" wrong.

Thanks

Hi,

Could someone pls clarify why B is wrong. I feel the adverb can modify a verb/adjective/other adverbs... Also "had been" means that the list has stopped growing

while clearly the list is growing...(hence has been is correctly used).

Regards,
Dom.

GMAT supports 2 grammatically correct structure,
1. Adj + Adj + Noun - Both adjectives modifies Noun
2. Adv + Adj + Noun - Adv Modifies Adjective , Adjective modifies Noun.

So dominicraj, adverb can modify adjective in type 2 and adverb can modify verb in normal case. Adv cannot modify noun.

I chose Option B, since overall tense of non underlined part appears to be past tense.

However, the logic on which i selected answer can be debated since,
Present tense in indirect speech will be re-presented by past tense. So overall non underline part is present tense and hence Option B can be correct

I think, Option Choice are not correct and both option A and B can be debated.

We need expert Help.

mikemcgarry can you please help us here We seriously need your inputs.

This is a flawed rewrite of an official SC problem. In the original, it made sense to have the word "recent" modify the whole phrase "extended sales slump." However, the same logic doesn't really apply to "growing injury list." It doesn't make sense that we have a "growing injury list" that is recent. It would make a bit more sense to use "recently." The adverb "recently" would just modify "growing." When was the list growing? Recently.

I would recommend focusing on the original problem (cited earlier in the thread) rather than this one.

ParmarKP, the problem with C is that "is" puts it in the present tense, which contrasts with the later use of "said." We might get away with present tense ("has been"), since that indicates something that started in the past and continues, but the simple present doesn't make sense in this context.

Hi Daagh,

Can shed some light of why recently cannot modify growing

I mean as far as I remember adverbs can modify adjectives .

What exactly is missing here.