Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime ministers not comi

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses

• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.
• The present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "Until 1868 and Disraeli"; the use of "until" to refer to a person - "Disraeli" - rather than a point in time leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb + ing") phrase "not coming" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "Until 1868 and Disraeli"; the use of "until" to refer to a person - "Disraeli" - rather than a point in time leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have not come" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past, and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "Until Disraeli in 1868"; the use of "until" to refer to a person - "Disraeli" - rather than a point in time leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have not come" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past, and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

D: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "It was not until 1868" and modifies "a prime minister" with "Disraeli", conveying the intended meaning - that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option D correctly uses the simple past tense verb "did not come" to refer to an action that concluded in the past.

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "It was only in 1868 and Disraeli"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb + ing" - "coming" in this case) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

A: double negation
B: double negation + tense issue
C: tense issue
D: fine
E: wrong meaning (although technically correct) in parallelism (in 1868 and (in) Disraeli)

Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime minister not coming from a landed family.

A. Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime minister not coming - until is used in the context of time ;The phrase …no prime minister not coming from… is confusing, as it doesn’t clearly convey the intended meaning that before Disraeli, all prime ministers of Great Britain came from landed families.
B. Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain has had not prime minister who has not come -Use of past perfect tense verb had had is incorrect because the sentence talks about an event that took place till a certain point in time in the past.
C. Until Disraeli in 1868, Great Britain had no prime minister who has not come - same idiom error as in A and B ;
D. It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister-Disraeli-who did not come - Correct
E. It was only 1868 and Disraeli that Great Britain has one of its prime minister not coming. - Illogical meaning - Disraeli in this choice appears to be a place and not a person.

Answer D

The answer is a straight D. Herein lies the problem : When I'm trying to explain the errors to other members here, I'm unable to articulate them and that points me to having a gap in my understanding.

In A and B for e.g., The usage of until seems to be incorrect. Whatever follows until denotes a point in time, but Disraeli doesn't.
C has the relation pronoun modifier issue i.e. who seems to be modifying Great Britain.
E again is combining a year and Disraeli and that makes no sense.

SO we're left with D as the answer, but since my articulation of the errors is glossy at best, can an expert help with dissecting the sentences?

Could someone clarify if my following understanding is correct:
D. It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister - Disraeli - who did not come

"had" here is "simple past" of has and is not "past perfect"?
Disraeli became PM "after" 1868 (not before it) and therefore past perfect is not correct here.

Can someone explain why C is wrong?

Hi sevenplusplus ,

Yes, your understanding is correct. Here 'had' is not used as a past perfect tense.



Hi pra1785 ,

Try to understand the meaning of the sentence.

It says Disraeli was the first prime minister who didn't come from from a landed family and this happened for the first time after 1868.

Let's talk about C.

Note that Until is used to denote the point of time.

For example: Until 2018, I will not be able to join Harvard Business School.

But C says Until some person. This is incorrect usage of until. Hence, C is incorrect.

Does that make sense?

'D' is correct - This version correctly uses the idiomatic construction not until . . . that, and it correctly uses past tense throughout.

I do have a question regarding option "C".
Explanations of OG suggested that the present- perfect tense (have not come) is inappropriate after the past tense (were) in this context.
Whether it is grammatically correct to use multiple tenses in a single sentence or the OG explanation is wrong ?

Please have a look on the below given Example
"I have heard that Mona left Manchester this morning, and has already arrived in London, where she will be for the next three weeks."

Here, we have present perfect tense, simple past tense and simple future tense all in the same sentence, but they all make sense together to create a logical sequence of events.

Need some guidance from the Experts GMATNinja sayantanc2k

There is nothing inherently wrong in using multiple tenses in a sentence.

However, that doesn't mean that we can use any tense we want in any sentence. This sentence talks about Disraeli, and the Prime Ministers before him. Given that the sentence connects Disraeli to 1868, we can safely say that all the other PMs must have come to power even earlier than that. Option C drops the present perfect have not come into this situation, and that's why it is incorrect in this case.

In the option D ;
is who not modifying Disraeli and not the prime minister

Hi shauryahanda,

That's right: who does not refer to Disraeli. Ignore the portion in between dashes.
1. It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family.

Otherwise, we'd be looking at something like this:
2. It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister (Disraeli, who did not come from a landed family).

(2) means that Great Britain did not have a prime minister at all until Disraeli, but this is not the intended meaning of the sentence.

In option C, I saw few mentioned Modifier Error since who is modifying UK instead of PMs. Is it correct?

From my point of view, Who is modifying PMs because "IN UK" acts as a modifier for PMs. Can anyone clarify this point?

Hi Soham68, who can only modify persons. So, who cannot modify UK.


There is no rule that who cannot refer to something in modifier. For example, following is a correct sentence:

Peter is a friend of Jack, who is a famous author.

Here, who is referring to Jack (it does not matter that of Jack is a modifier of friend).

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses this aspect of "relative pronouns". Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

Hi experts,

Upon my first time reading this, I automatically assumed Disraeli to be an event (like the holocaust for example) which occurred in the past because of its placement with 1868 in the original sentence. How else could one have eliminated A and choose D, which makes Disraeli a person all of a sudden?

GMATNinja egmat EMPOWERgmatVerbal VeritasKarishma

EDIT: Am I right to assume that if for example Disraeli was an event from the past, then the correct sentence structure would have been 'Until 1868 and THE Disraeli, Great Britain....'

Great question, LamboWalker!

This question is meant to be confusing, but if we look for context clues, we can determine that Disraeli is a person. An event cannot become a Prime Minister - but a person can. The inclusion of the double negatives and the word "until" are there to throw off students to think that Disraeli is an event or place.

If we look at your hypothetical question, you would be correct - using "until" to refer to both a year and an event is okay, though we wouldn't word it quite like you had it:

Until 1900 and the Olympics, women were not allowed to compete in any Olympic events. --> Not great.
Until the Olympics in 1900, women were not allowed to compete in any Olympic events. --> Much better!

We hope that helps!

Feel free to tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!

Hi E-gmat,

Could you please let me know the function of 'that' in option D. Is it acting as a connector or as a modifier?
I felt 'that' is not correct in option D and should have been 'when'.
'It was not until 1868 when Great Britain.....'
Please help me clear my doubt

Moumita