A recent article in The New York Times

the decision is taken and the effect is still there,,,past perfect is not required...

C and E left...
in C ,,instead of facing is incorrect,,,should e simple past,,,

E wins,,,

whats the OA

mohshu and XboX, Yes your answers are correct. I have added the OA to the question.

Purpose of posting this question was to understand sequence of tense. Since we are third person telling something that was reported by TIMEs- we should push all the tenses one step in past. But the Present perfect is tricky to push. mohshu is right that since the effect is still there we should use have. if the actual statement from TIMEs was that " the student decided ...." the answer would have " HAD " in it.

Right?

In fact I just found another question on GMAT verbal review - https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-march-2000 ... 81147.html

The OE for this is that both HAD or HAS could have been right in option B, depending on when the Question was made and on whether the fact is true today also or not.
GMATNinja Sir can both "had" and "have" be right on the original question??

Use of had is wrong in A, B and D is wrong
E is correct

Hi, Thank you for your response. Can you elaborate on use of HAD from sequence of tense point of view. I understand E is correct, but we can figure E out without the HAVE/HAD split.
I am quoting an example from Manhattan SC-
Scientist: " the supercollider is ready, it did not cost too much, and it will provide new insight into the working of the universe".
Report : The scientist ANNOUNCED that the the supercollider WAS ready, it HAD not COST too much, and it WOULD provide new insight into the working of the universe

Now in the original example -
New York Times :" Many recent college graduates have decided to move back into their parents’ home rather than face the uncertainty and expense of the rental market"
Report /Third person : New york times reported that many recent college graduates HAVE/HAD decided to move back into their parents’ home rather than face the uncertainty and expense of the rental market.

Now because we dont know was the third person quoting new york times after several years of the report or just the next day, and because we dont know is the decision made by graduates still true or not, we can use both HAVE/HAD depending on the context and reality.

GMATNinja Sir can you help on this topic?

Sir I have a doubt on the usage of HAVE/HAD, from sequence of tenses point of view. IMO both should be right.

It's true that technically, we can use either present or past perfect (have or had) when we describe one past action that precedes another. However, it's important to understand that we don't usually need to use past perfect. If we have more than one past action, we can use past perfect to indicate that one action preceded the other. However, just because we can use past perfect doesn't mean we should. Typically, we will only do this if a) the sequence matters and b) the prior action is over. This sentence meets neither of those criteria. If we read an article about something, clearly that thing occurred before the article was written, so there's no need to clarify the sequence. Additionally, since this article describes a current trend, presumably college graduates continue to make this decision. (If the article described a decision that were made at one point in time, such as the decision of a jury, past perfect would make more sense.) This renders the past perfect completely inappropriate here. The use of "had" is incorrect in this context.

It's worth noting that this is a poor and rather transparent rewrite of an official GMAT question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-recent-stu ... 73334.html

Notice that the original makes things clearer with a modifier ("within the past few years") that makes the use of the past perfect absolutely impossible. It also opens with the present perfect, although it's possible for a recent study to "have found" something out about the past, the present, or even the future. In other words, opening with the present perfect doesn't force the other verbs to be in the present perfect.

By the way, pulkitaggi, you're right that we don't need to use tense to get to E. Only E has the parallel form "to move . . . rather than face."

I am sorry just one clarification -

Students decide <---------1 step in past----- New york time reports the news <-------1 step in past---- I am telling what new york time reported yesterday

I was thinking in this term. Using Tense Sequence topic on Manhattan SC, I thought Sequence will matter here. I agree that truth about prior action that- is the students decision still valid or not,is not known. And for that reason I think both HAVE/HAD should be right.

Eg.
Scientist: " Supercollider has not cost a penny to our organisation"
Report: The scientist announced that supercollider HAS/HAD not cost a penny to their organisation.

In this only HAS will be correct? Maybe I am reporting ,what scientist announced, after 10 years, when we all know supercollider actually had cost billions of dollars to their organisation, and scientist was actually hiding some facts

We inherently know that what new york time is reporting cannot happen after new york time reports it. But can we argue this statement on the similar ground as the above example?

Sorry, to stretch on this topic. I think I made a similar mistake on my GMAT paper. And I believe all this confusion is because of this question's OE https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-march-2000 ... 81147.html ... And I dont want to repeat this. ( OE - says both has / had is right in option B)

In this sentence "had" is incorrect as it is used to describe something which happened in the past. In this sentence we are talking about something which is happening at present. That is why "have" should be used. From this we can eliminate options A, B and D.
Now we are left with C and E. In option C, "have decided to move back into .." is not parallel with "facing". "instead of" can keep nouns in parallel, not verbs. So we can't use "instead of" in this case where we are dealing with verbs.
In option E, "have" is being used correctly and also "move" is parallel with "face". In the idiom form, "X rather than Y", "X" and "Y" should be parallel.
So answer is E.

pulkitaggi, what I'm getting at with past perfect is that simply having a sequence isn't enough to require the use of past perfect. There needs to be a clear reason to build that sequence into the sentence. In the supercollider example, it's a bit different. Since the scientist is assessing the cost of the supercollider up to that point, past perfect makes sense. In fact, if we wanted to emphasize that the supercollider will continue to cost nothing, we'd probably shift into simple present: "The scientist announced that the supercollider does not cost a penny to their organization." In the original question, students are presumably still deciding to move back with their parents. There's no reason to assume that that trend has completely ended. (Again, the official question makes this much more clear. That's why it's always better to study from official SC questions.)

The example in your link is definitely a well-justified use of the present perfect. The verb phrase "has contributed" isn't even part of some previous description; rather, it's part of a modifier describing Mexico's share. The author is telling us directly right now that the amount is the largest that any country has contributed since 1980. We could use past perfect here, but only if we wanted to emphasize that this was the case in 2000 and might not be the case now.

The simple takeaway is this: NEVER assume that sequenced past events require the use of the past perfect. That is a necessary condition for past perfect, but not a sufficient one. In other words, every use of past perfect must have sequenced past events, but not every sentence about sequenced past events must use the past perfect. In some cases, it's simply not needed, and in other cases, it's really wrong. There are many ways to talk about past events, depending on what our intended meaning is and which ideas we're trying to emphasize. If you want to delve into another case in which we can talk about past, present, and future in different ways depending on what we want to emphasize, check out my post here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/industry-ana ... l#p1898602

I don´t see why you say that instead of needs to have a noun here...instead of is perfectly correct. The problem is that facing with expense

Thank you sir. Now I am able to make much more sense.
My takeaway- Sequence of tense is not a sufficient condition. If the sentence do make sense without the use of past perfect- then that answer should be preferred. Also in the original question The graduate decision activity has not yet ended.

juanito1985, they're right about "instead of." It should only be used to compare nouns. To compare actions, we need "rather than."

Thank you for the clarification!

decide on somthing
is correct. not decide on doing

both had done and have done is correc , I think

Hi Can experts clarify on idiom 'Decide on'
I have read somewhere in the forum that :
Decide on - When you have to options either do or not do
Decide to - when you have more than two option and you choose one among them
here there are only two options. How is decide to correct in the correct answer?
DmitryFarber GMATNinja Abhi077

Vinodhini1803
Easy explanation: someone fed you a fake rule.

The difference between "decide to" and "decide on" is really a matter of how "to" and "on" work, and has nothing to do with the number of possibilities. You can decide to do something or decide on a course of action, whether there are many options or just one.

So what's the difference? The "to" in "decide to" is part of an infinitive verb. We need a verb to complete the phrase. The "on" creates a modifier, and we need to know "on what." So "decide on" is completed by a noun (typically an action noun, but not always).

Short version:
decide to + verb
decide on + noun