Advertising that one of its many attractions has been the

Question

Advertising that one of  its many attractions has been the recent  growth in per capita income among its citizens, Town A pursued its campaign to draw new businesses to the area.

A. its many attractions has been the recent
B. its many attractions had been the recent
C. its many attractions was the recent
D. their many attractions has been the recent
E. their many attractions had been the recent

KyleWiddison · Accepted Answer

This problem hinges on pronouns and verb tenses. "Their" is not the correct pronoun for "Town A", so D/E are eliminated. A/B/C each have different tenses: has been (present perfect), had been (past perfect), and was (simple past). In this case, the sentence is showing a sequence of past events - the growth of income followed by the campaign. The purpose of the past perfect tense is to create a time distinction between 2 events both taking place in the past with the earlier event using the past perfect tense and the later event using the simple past. The sentence has the simple past with "pursued", so the earlier event needs to be described with the past perfect, "had been". Correct answer B.

rphardu · Answer

Hi bschool83, 
 First split for Its and Their, Here town is singular so we can not use their.so options D and E gone.
Now among A B C , lets see cause and effect relationship. The effect of recent growth in one attraction made Town A pursued its campaign to draw new business area so we know in effect of growth is continuous. We use simple past when that action happened at particular moment and not continuous in nature so option C is gone.

Now we are remain with A and B.
We can not use present tense for former event and past tense with later event so option A is gone.

Answer B is right. Now lets analyze B.  One clue to use perfect tense is word "recently", this shows uncertain time period so can not use Simple past. 
"The one of its many attractions had been the recent growth in per capita income among its citizens" and its growth was continuous till town purged to draw new Business Area so perfect answer.

I hope my explanation will help.

samatace · Answer

I do not get why C is not the answer. I do not see timing issue here

aligol · Answer

I also vote for C. Let's see what has been the content of the advertisement at the time it has been on air. Two contents are possible:
1. one of our many attractions IS the recent growth in per capita income among our citizens.
2. one of our many attractions HAS BEEN the recent growth in per capita income among our citizens.

If "1" has been the content, then C is the correct answer.
If "2" has been the content, then B is the correct answer. 
My feeling is that "1" has been the content, so C is the correct answer.

Any thoughts?

samatace · Answer

Yeah, I think I got it now. The use of "Recent" is usally used with perfect tenses. For that reason, only B suits. That is the only takeway, i could infer, yet nobody mentions this fact. Any thoughts experts??? I am not a native speaker so elaboration on this point would be higly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

KapTeacherEli · Answer

Recent is usually used with the past perfect, good spotting!

Remember, the past perfect tense is used to indicate actions that were already complete or had already happened at a specific point in the past.

Past Perfect ---------- Time being Discussed ----------------- Now ------Future

A "recent" event is one in the recent past, but one in the past--"recent" growth had already been completed, and was already an attractive feature of Town A, at the time time of the advertising campaign. So, the "had been" tense is correct.

VyshakhR1995 · Answer

I dont understand this....The Effect growth or its effect is still there....Its not a past event right?? So why B is correct

sayantanc2k · Answer

The part "one of its many attractions had been the recent growth in per capita income among its citizens" is stated within an advertisement by town A. This advertising occurred in the past and hence the verb "had been" is past of past. Therefore past perfect is alright. The following explanation may further help: https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-reaction- ... l#p1841110

MI83 · Answer

I urge an expert to provide an elaborate explanation

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  MI83 ,

You could try  the official question that this question is based on .

JDLaw · Answer

Answer: B

A. its many attractions has been the recent Use of Has been is wrong, needs to show sequence (timeline) for the use of pursued. 
B. its many attractions had been the recent Correct 
C. its many attractions was the recent Was is incorrect, need to show sequence (timeline) for the use of pursued  
D. their many attractions has been the recent Non underlined portion already mentions "Its", Their is wrong for subject Town A. 
E. their many attractions had been the recent Non underlined portion already mentions "Its", Their is wrong for subject Town A.

himanshu0123 · Answer

do we really need to use past perfect to show which event happened first.

isn't it clear from the context that recent growth in per capita happened first?

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  himanshu0123 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the use of the past perfect tense is redundant, only when the order of events is made clear through  the use of phrases  such as "before" and "after" or the mention of  times and dates .

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

himanshu0123 · Answer

ExpertsGlobal5

what is right in this context, should we chose option C] over B] because the sequence of events is clear i.e recent growth in per capita happened first.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

This question isn't very good. I think AjiteshArun has a much better idea--study the official question, which does not rely on a questionable-at-best split. First, it's important to note that past perfect is never required--it's simply a tool we can use to increase clarity when multiple past events are involved. Second, one could easily argue that in this case, the past perfect is incorrect. It doesn't really make sense to advertise based on something that HAD BEEN an attraction. You'd think it would be better to focus on something that STILL WAS an attraction. The official question has neither of these flaws.

AjiteshArun

MI83

I urge an expert to provide an elaborate explanation

Hi MI83,

You could try the official question that this question is based on.

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

I think you're thinking along correct lines here, but the reality is more extreme: It's  wrong  to use the past perfect here.

Stating that "one of the area's attractions  HAD BEEN...  recent income growth" places  the ability of this phenomenon to attract businesses  into the prior timeframe that had already passed by the time described.

That's nonsense. The area  WAS  trying to attract new businesses  at the past time narrated  (= the time at which the town "pursued its campaign"). A campaign of that sort could only make sense if it described attractions that obtained, as attractions,  at the time when they were advertised!

Therefore, the correct way to write this sentence is actually C, not B.

To strengthen your intuition for why the attraction status doesn't have to be confined to the timeframe of the income growth itself, consider the same idea but stated in the present instead:  "One of the area's  current  attractions to new businesses  IS  the recent pattern of growth for its residents" ).

And, of course, for any tourist site of historical significance, we can definitely make statements such as  "This site  IS  a major tourist attraction because it  WAS  the site of  " .

VerbalBot · Answer

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Advertising that one of its many attractions has been the

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Advertising that one of its many attractions has been the

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