Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet’s student and protégé when he was nine

Question

Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet’s student and protégé when he was nineteen and, for a few years in the 1940’s, came as close to being a carbon copy of the jazz virtuoso in performance  as anyone has ever come .

(A) as anyone has ever come 
(B) as anyone ever had been 
(C) as anyone ever had done 
(D) that anyone ever did 
(E) that anyone ever came

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/13/arts/disks-display-sidney-bechet-s-melodies.html

One of the few people who is aware of the extent of Mr. Bechet's compositions is Bob Wilber, who became Mr. Bechet's student and protege when he was 19 and, for a few years in the late 40's, was as close to a carbon copy of Mr. Bechet in performance  as anyone has ever come .

joshnsit · Accepted Answer

the sentence should read come as close....as anyone has ever come Killer bullet on the forehead of this question on this link. https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-sentenc ... post100530 Here is an excerpt from the same. The best answer is A. B and C are both wrong because "ever" is misplaced. Adverbs of frequency ("always," "never," "often," "seldom," "ever," etc.) must be placed between the auxiliary verb and the past participle. Should be: "as anyone had ever done." There is nothing wrong with using the present perfect "has come" in A. It means that Wilber came as close to being a carbon copy of the jazz virtuoso as anyone had come before or has come since. Consider the following examples: "In 1960 Johnson scored as many goals as anyone had ever scored in one year." "In 1960 Johnson scored as many goals as anyone has ever scored in one year." In the first example, Johnson's number of goals in 1960 is compared only with previous years. In the second example his number of goals in 1960 is compared with all years before and since.

mihir0710 · Answer

OE from Ron on Manhattan Forum :
i'm going to have to be the dissenting voice here; i personally like (a) better than the other choices.

(d) and (e) are plainly wrong; "as close..." must be followed up by "as".

(c) also doesn't make any sense, because there's no precedent for "done". specifically, the sentence doesn't use any other form of the verb "to do", so "done" isn't properly parallel to anything.

(a) makes sense: he came as close as anyone has ever come. that's totally parallel. also, the "ever" is inserted in the location that's traditionally considered correct for these sorts of things: between the helping verb and the participle (i.e., between "has" and "come"). i don't think it's unidiomatic to write "ever has come", but that would certainly be more awkward than "has ever come".

in (b), you could probably argue for "had been", in the sense that it means "had been ... as close". so that's ok. 
as a tiebreaker, though, the placement of "ever" isn't optimal in this choice; "had ever been" would be better.

--

as another tiebreaker, note that (a) is in the present perfect and (b) is in the past perfect. both of these actually make sense, but they have different interpretations: 
* present perfect (as in choice a) means that he came closer than anyone else all the way up to the present day 
* past perfect (as in choice b) means that he came closer than anyone else up to his time. the use of the past perfect actually implies that someone has since come closer; in particular, the fact that the present perfect isn't used seems to imply this.

the reason this is a tiebreaker is that you're obliged to preserve the meaning of the original sentence, insofar as it actually makes sense. because the present perfect is a valid interpretation, the past perfect constitutes an unacceptable change of meaning.

adalfu · Answer

a: ...came close as anyone has ever come  
b: had is wrong here. had   implies the event ended... you want to express that nobody  has  yet  come  close... i.e., the event still in play...

also,  had been  ... had been what?
c: same as b. i believe it'll be correct to say "as anyone has ever done"

hamza · Answer

There are 2 distinguishing points between A and B.

1. Use of present perfect in A and past perfect in B
By using past perfect in B the original meaning is slightly distorted. (removing the possibility of anyone  now  coming as close to virtuoso performance) In such cases we should try to remain as close to original meaning as possible which is A)

2. The construction of A is better than of B. Please see the difference below:
Bob Wilber ... came as close to X as anyone  has ever  come.  (better) 
Bob Wilber ... came as close to X as anyone  ever has  come.  (awkward)

Second one is the format of B with additional diff. of past perfect (already discussed)

Hope that helps,

thangvietname · Answer

I think c is best
he come as close to being a carbon coppy as anyone had come

sayantanc2k · Answer

The two elements of comparison are:
1. Bob Wilber came close to being a carbon copy.
2. Anyone (A) has ever come / (C) ever had done.

Past perfect is not the correct choice here. Bob Wilber came close to being a carbon copy in the 1940's. Using past perfect for the second element of comparison implies a comparison with those who came before 1940's. However the sentence intends to compare with those who came until now. Hence present prefect tense is better.

Correct A. ...he came as close to being a carbon copy as anyone has ever come...

ShukhratJon · Answer

C. Bob Wilber... came as close to smth... as anyone ever had done (close to smth). Here ‘had done close to smth’ doesn’t look sensible, but I am not sure. Ron says that ‘done’ is unparallel to anything. But I thought that it is parallel to ‘came’. Anyways, if you read it as ‘done close to smth’ it sounds nonsensical.

B. Bob Wilber... came as close to smth... as anyone ever had been (close to smth). Here ‘been close to smth’ is sensible as Ron says. But B has a meaning shift and the placement of ‘ever’ is worse in B than its placement in A. Adverbs of frequency (always, ever, never, often, seldom..) should be placed between helping verb ‘have/ has/ had’ and the past participle ‘come’, as it is in A.

A. Bob Wilber... came as close to smth... as anyone has ever come (close to smth). 
B. Bob Wilber... came as close to smth... as anyone ever had been (close to smth).
The difference between A and B is that A compares Bob with people of all time, before and after 1940, who came close to being... while B compares Bob with people who ever came close to being... before 1940.

Both A and B have a tenable meaning but B loses because of wrong adverb placement and meaning shift.

SomeOneUnique · Answer

MartyTargetTestPrep  Can you kindly clarify.
A : Bob Wilber came as close as anyone  has ever come   =>   BW is compared with everyone till date
B : Bob Wilber came as close as anyone  ever had been   =>   BW is compared with everyone till 1940's

Non-underlined part does not help us to figure out which group shall we refer.
Both are emphasizing on 'ever' from different angles.
Also, both sentences are grammatically fine and meaningful.

In such a scenario how can we decide which one to pick ? Can you throw some light please.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Tenses + Idioms

• 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. 
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• The simple past tense is only used to refer to events that concluded in the past.
• “as A as B” is a correct, idiomatic usage.

A:   Correct.  This answer choice correctly uses the present perfect tense verb "has...come" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present. Further, Option A correctly uses the idiomatic construction "as A ("close to...in performance") as B ("anyone has ever come").

B:  Trap. This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had been" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, 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, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

C:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had done" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, 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, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

D:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "did" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, 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, and the simple past tense is only used to refer to events that concluded in the past. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "as A ("close to...in performance") that B ("anyone ever did"); please remember, “as A as B” is a correct, idiomatic usage.

E:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "came" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, 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, and the simple past tense is only used to refer to events that concluded in the past. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "as A ("close to...in performance") that B ("anyone ever came"); please remember, “as A as B” is a correct, idiomatic usage.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeqkwGHWoQQ

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGxC37OOGU

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZj-SubJwsM

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

You have to just go with the version that makes more sense and seems to be what the question writer considered correct.

It makes more sense to (1) compare how close Bob Wilber came with how close other people have "come," rather than with how close other people had "been," and to (2) compare how close Bob Wilber came with how close anyone has come to date, rather than with how close people had been before Bob Wilber came close.

Raman109 · Answer

Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet’s student and protégé when he was nineteen and, for a few years in the 1940’s, came as close to being a carbon copy of the jazz virtuoso in performance  as anyone has ever come .

Option Elimination -

(A) as anyone has ever come - as ..as - ok. Present Perfect conveys that, to date, no one else has come close in performance. Ok. 
(B) as anyone ever had been - "had been" is wrong as present perfect is used with an earlier past event. Are we saying before the 1940s? No. We are comparing from the 1940s to the present. 
(C) as anyone ever had done - we are comparing two in terms of their performance and not in terms of action conveyed by "done." There is no comparison of "done" in the sentence. 
(D) that anyone ever did - We need "as ....as" 
(E) that anyone ever came - We need "as ....as"

Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet’s student and protégé when he was nine

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Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet’s student and protégé when he was nine

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