A historian attempting to predict in the 1870's which nation would tak

A historian attempting to predict in the 1870's which nation would take over world leadership from the British probably would have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and been quite wrong.

(A) have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and (would)been ->no need to specify would again.
(B) have guessed that it would have been Bismarck's Prussia and he would be ->tense order should be reversed
(C) have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and would be
->needs would have been->this action is some where after the past(i.e. in the future of the past) but before the present.
(D) guess Bismarck's Prussia and be
(E) guess that it would be Bismarck's Prussia and would have been


IMO 'A'

The action must take in past hence D and E are out immediately.
Now we have to keep the sequence of events in mind. Both action are hypothetical and must take in past. Moreover, prediction has to be earlier action.
So the sequence is 1) guessing--->2)result whether the prediction is correct or not
since the prediction would have take placed in between present and hypothetical past, the same goes for the result.
Hence would have guessed and would have been quite wrong is correct.
+1 A

I'm happy to help.

If we are discussing something hypothetical in the past, we use the constructive "would have" + [past participle]
would have said
would have gone
would have been
This is a form of the subjunctive mood. For more on this, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... ive-tense/
Both actions in this question, the "guessing" and the "being wrong," are past hypothetical actions, so they both most have this form.
First of all, choice (D) & (E) have "would guess" instead of "would have guessed," so they are wrong.
Choices (B) & (C) have the correct construction for the first verb, but not for the second: it has "would be" instead of "would have been." The "being wrong" is also a hypothetical past event, so it has to have this same form. Choice (B) & (C) are incorrect. BTW, choice (B) is also a distended monstrosity that never could be correct.

This leaves (A), which correctly has both verbs in the proper form. Choice (A) is the only possible answer.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

A historian attempting to predict in the 1870's which nation would take over world leadership from the British probably would have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and been quite wrong.

(A) have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and been
parrallel in the usage of verb tense: ... would have guessed ... and would have been ...

(B) have guessed that it would have been Bismarck's Prussia and he would be
wordy and awkward

(C) have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and would be
not parrallel in the usage of verb tense

(D) guess Bismarck's Prussia and be
change the intended meaning of the sentence, the author want to express a possibility and an uncertainty about his/her hypothesis

(E) guess that it would be Bismarck's Prussia and would have been
wrong verb tense and not parrallel

Hi mikemcgarry,
A historian attempting to predict in the 1870's which nation would take over world leadership from the British probably would have guessed Bismarck's Prussia and been quite wrong.

Pardon me as I'm not able to catch up with your explanation;I couldn't sense any subjunctive mood in this sentence at all.
IMHO,a historian predicted something in the past;hence the simple "would + v1" should be fine.

Could you please elaborate more on your reasoning?
Thanks

Dear sleepynut

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, here you have to know a little history. You don't have to be an expert historian, but you have to realize that at no time did Germany become a dominant world power on the level that Britain had been for centuries. Bismarck and the Prussians united Germany, but they didn't go on to dominate all of Europe at that moment in history. The two World Wars in the 20th century were quite separate from Bismarck's time, and even in these, Germany twice tried to achieve greater military domination and twice failed. Germany in the present day is emerging as a world leader, not with military domination but with economic domination, and ironically, economic domination turns out to be much more powerful in the long run.

The meaning of the sentence depends on this. In other words, the hypothetical historians in the 1870s would have made this prediction that is contrary to fact. The historian in that time might have speculated that Bismarck & Germany were headed for domination of all of Europe, but that's not how events played out. Even if you don't know all this history, the sentence itself makes it clear that the hypothetical historians would have guessed and their guess would have been wrong.

The fact that they guessed something that ultimately did not take place means they made a guess that turned out to be contrary to fact. A contrary-to-fact past event is one of the principal uses of the subjunctive. Sensing the subjunctive often involves understanding meaning. If you only pay attention to individual verbs and ignore meaning, you will miss the subjunctive--in fact, you will miss 90% of what the GMAT SC is about. The GMAT SC is NOT a test of grammar! The GMAT SC is a test of meaning, and the job of grammar is to serve the meaning.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Please help !!!

As per my understanding, the use of 'would have' in conditional sentence is when the sentence contains past perfect. I do not see past perfect here.

Will appreciate your comment on this.

Hi altairahmad , you ask a good question. +1

Sometimes hypothetical (and conditional) constructions will not explicitly contain the words you are looking for.
Those sentences can still use constructions without their "other halves."

True, you do not see past perfect here. That fact is okay.
The use of "would have" is not confined to situations in which the past perfect is stated explicitly.
"Would have" is used to express the unreal past.
If a sentence can construct an unreal past without past perfect, the use of "would have" is perfectly acceptable.

Not actually mentioning the first part of a hypothetical is rare.
My hat is off to the authors of this sentence.

What to do? Start with the time period. The options tell us that verbs are at issue.

We know from the context that we are dealing with the unreal past.

The sentence is talking about a hypothetical historian in the 1870s. ("A historian attempting to . . .)
The actions are also hypothetical.
Both guessing and being wrong are hypothetical. (A hypothetical historian also makes hypothetical guesses and is hypothetically wrong.)
So we are dealing with the unreal past.

Now we can speculate and get our past perfect.

The not-real historian did not actually guess.
But IF (counterfactually) she had guessed [past perfect!] which nation would take over she probably would _______ Bismark's Germany and _______ quite wrong

We could write the sentence with past perfect, this way:
If a historian had attempted to predict in the 1870s which nation would take over world leadership from the British, she probably would have guessed Bismark's Germany and [she would have] been quite wrong.

Would have guessed and would have been wrong are the verb tenses we use for the truly hypothetical: a not-real condition in the past and its not-real result in the future of the past.

Hope that helps. If not, ask another question. (You might want to try tagging. )

Thanks a lot. Your answer helped a lot.

Now I have another question, since the algorithm of 'if past perfect then conditional perfect' is out the window now, how do I differentiate between hypothetical conditions where simple conditional is needed, for which my previous algorithm was 'If simple past then conditional', and hypothetical conditions where conditional perfect is needed'. Do I have to bring in the 'perfect tense' argument that the action/effect has to remain true to this day ? If yes, then how do I apply the same on this question. 'have' points to the fact that the historian would have been wrong to the present day ?

For the most part, these conditional algorithms do work, but every now and then a question like this pops up and messes everything up.

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