"contemporaries of Harriet Tubman's...." This is actually redundant. "contemporaries of Harriet Tubman" is already possessive, and the apostrophe+s is not needed. In fact if you add it, the sentence begs the question "Contemporaries of Harriet Tubman's what??"

This rules out choices A, B and C.

Between D and E it's basically the tenses

E has the past perfect coupled with the present tense, where both events are happening in the past. Thus it is incorrect to use the present tense "has"

This leaves D which corrects the apostrophe s and uses proper tenses. "maintained... had..." both are in the past.

Pick D.

OA is D. I did not realize that 2 items of the past are used, so simple past and past perfect have to be used.
Thanks.

It boils down to only D and E.

(D) Tubman maintained that she had ----> "maintained" and "had"
There cannot be a time difference between your thinking (maintain) and the thought (HB had all the qualities of the good leader). They both happen at the same time. D is not using past perfect.

(E) Tubman had maintained that she has ----> Change of meaning.
"had maintained"
I believe past perfect will have the effect of sequencing events leading to a nonsensical sentence.

use of apostrophes in A to C - out.
D: after the civil war, contemporaries of Harriet Tubman testified of the qualities she was known for before the war.
She possessed several qualities of a great leader, hence the use of "had."
(D) is the best choice.

Lets break down the sentence:

1) After the Civil War, --> prepositional phrase (acting as an adjective modifying contemporaries)
2) contemporaries of Harriet Tubman maintained --> subject + verb: contemporaries maintained (here, just use simple past since we don't have another verb that we need to distinquish BEFORE the verb "maintained")
3) that she had all of the qualities of a great leader: coolness in the face of danger, an excellent sense of strategy, and an ability to plan in minute detail. --> relative that-clause with simple past verb had. note this is simple past, not a perfect past tense as we don't have "had + past participle".

1. Contemporaries of Tubman’s is double possessive and wrong; It should be either contemporaries of Tubman or Tubman’s contemporaries.

2. Past tense verbs -maintained and had(possessed) -are required to describe a simple past event

So D
_________________

---start---
First Check : Sentence is in Direct Speech or Indirect Speech = Indirect Speech (verb tense Indirect Speech mode activated)
Second Check : What other forms of grammatical errors in the sentence (Run normal scan)
Error : Double possessive identified : ...contemporaries of Harriet Tubman's...
Eliminate similar choices: A, B, and C eliminated.
Apply Indirect Speech tense test on D and E : D passed & E failed.
Answer : D
---end---

202. After the Civil War, contemporaries of Harriet Tubman's maintained that she has all of the qualities of a great leader: coolness in the face of danger, an excellent sense of strategy, and an ability to plan in minute detail.
(A) Tubman's maintained that she has
(B) Tubman's maintain that she had
(C) Tubman's have maintained that she had
(D) Tubman maintained that she had -- I expect she had had (past perfect tense)
(E) Tubman had maintained that she has

I have a question about whether or not it's fair to ask this question on the test....

Sentence Correction Q. #99 asks:

After the Civil War, contemporaries of Harriet Tubman's maintained that she has all of the qualities of a great leader: coolness in the face of danger, an excellent sense of strategy, and an ability to plan in minute detail.

(A) Tubman's maintained that she has
(B) Tubman's maintain that she had
(C) Tubman's have maintained that she had
(D) Tubman maintained that she had
(E) Tubman had maintained that she has


Obviously A, B, and C are incorrect since it's redundant to use the possessive with "of". Now, onto D or E...

What if you didn't know that Harriet Tubman was dead during or shortly after the Civil War? Does the sentence somehow imply that she's dead at the time of the contemporaries post-Civil War, because they wouldn't have had to maintain a viewpoint/recollection of Tubman, if Harriet Tubman herself, if alive, would maintain those qualities through her existence?

But, if she were still alive, then maybe her contemporaries would maintain that she has the qualities of a great leader, perhaps for a different leadership role pertinent to their present. Or, perhaps her contemporaries are recalling her leadership qualities in general, and relating it back to how she is a great person at their present time.


Edit: The correct answer shown in the book is D.

So it seems like "had maintained" is incorrect in E... and that to use "had maintained" with "has" is nonsensical (something ongoing that occurred in the past is mutually exclusive and not necessarily relevant to the present). I guess then it's just a process of elimination. But, part of the reason the book gave is that "Since Tubman died long ago, she had, not has, the qualities of a great leader." That was why I was confused. If (E) read "Tubman have maintained that she has", I think the question is unfair.

Yes, it's the "had maintained" that makes E really wrong, since that uses the past perfect tense, which we use when we're talking about something that happened earlier than some other past event in the sentence. There's just no such event in the sentence, so the past perfect isn't right.

I agree with you that if you change the verb tenses, you can create other meaningful sentences - sentences with different meanings than that in the correct answer, but logical meanings all the same. I think I've only once seen one SC question where I thought two answers were perfectly written, and conveyed logical (but different) meanings. Unfortunately that question appeared on my last real test, and there may well have been some subtlety I didn't spot. It was also a question where, by changing verb tenses, you could create correct sentences with different meanings. Fortunately such questions are extremely rare, so you most likely won't ever see one!
_________________

Error Analysis
(A) Tubman’s maintained that she has
She is not a possessive pronoun. Hence can to refer to Harriet Tubman’s
The sentence is in past - hence 'has' is not correct

(B) Tubman’s maintain that she had
She is not a possessive pronoun. Hence can to refer to Harriet Tubman’s

(C) Tubman’s have maintained that she had
She is not a possessive pronoun. Hence can to refer to Harriet Tubman’s
The original sentence used simple past - "maintained" (action completed). There is no reason to change simple past to present perfect- have maintained (there is no evidence that opinion of contemporaries is maintained in present)

(D) Tubman maintained that she had - CORRECT

(E) Tubman had maintained that she has
Use of past perfect "had maintained" is incorrect. There is no two related events in past.
The sentence is in past - hence 'has' is not correct

in choice E, "had maintained" has no past time point. we need a past point for had done. moreover, "has " is not correct here because the meaing makes "has " incorrect. in most of the cases, if verb in main clause is in the past, the verb in "that-clause" normally in the past but it can be in present time depending on meaning. the meaning here dose not allowe present time "has"

After the Civil War, contemporaries of Harriet Tubman maintained that she had all of the qualities of a greater leader: coolness in the face of danger, an excellent sense of strategy, and an ability to plan in minute detail.

Correct aswer must be (D) for the highlighted errors in the other options....
_________________

After the Civil War, contemporaries of Harriet Tubman’s maintained that she has all of the qualities of a great leader: coolness in the face of danger, an excellent sense of strategy, and an ability to plan in minute detail.

(A) Tubman’s maintained that she has - usage of contemporaries of Harriet Tubman's is incorrect ; Harriet Tubman's contemporaries or contemporaries of Harriet Tubman is correct
(B) Tubman’s maintain that she had - same as A
(C) Tubman’s have maintained that she had - same as A
(D) Tubman maintained that she had - Correct
(E) Tubman had maintained that she has - usage of past perfect had maintained is incorrect

Answer D
_________________

Hi rakesh22,

Thank you for your question. To tackle this question, let's look at the two main differences between each answer:

1. Tubman's / Tubman
2. she had / she has

If we start by looking at how each answer begins, we see that there is a difference between Tubman's / Tubman. By saying "contemporaries of Harriet Tubman's," it means that these are contemporaries of something Tubman owns or has - not Tubman herself. Therefore, we can rule out answers A, B, & C because the extra 's changes the meaning.

Now that we have it narrowed down to two possible answers, let's look at how they stack up to #2 on our list:

(D) Tubman maintained that she had
This is the CORRECT answer because it uses the past tense "she had," which indicates that she died, which is true.

(E) Tubman had maintained that she has
This is INCORRECT because it uses the present tense "she has," which indicates that Harriet Tubman is still alive somehow. She is not, so using present tense doesn't make logical sense.
_________________

There is no need for the apostrophe after ‘Tubman’ – the sentence already says ‘contemporaries’.

Eliminate Options A, B and C.

Now, between D and E, you will notice that the difference is in the use of tenses.

E uses ‘has’ to denote something that happened in the past. Eliminate.

Option D is the right answer.

Hope this helps!
_________________

(A) Tubman’s maintained that she has - Wrong: 1) Meaning 2) Pronoun 3) Verb
(B) Tubman’s maintain that she had - Wrong: 1) Meaning 2) Pronoun
(C) Tubman’s have maintained that she had - Wrong: 1) Meaning 2) Pronoun 3) Verb
(D) Tubman maintained that she had - Correct
(E) Tubman had maintained that she has - Wrong: 1) Verb

(A) Tubman’s maintained that she has
“contemporaries of Harriet Tubman’s” is redundant – it’s contemporaries of Harriet Tubman OR Harriet Tubman’s contemporaries

(B) Tubman’s maintain that she had
“contemporaries of Harriet Tubman’s” is redundant – it’s contemporaries of Harriet Tubman OR Harriet Tubman’s contemporaries

(C) Tubman’s have maintained that she had
“contemporaries of Harriet Tubman’s” is redundant – it’s contemporaries of Harriet Tubman OR Harriet Tubman’s contemporaries

(D) Tubman maintained that she had
Bingo

(E) Tubman had maintained that she has
Okay. “…contemporaries of Harriet Tubman had maintained…” so her contemporaries maintained/asserted something in the past (before something other past event). “…that she has all of the qualities…” (so the contemporaries that she currently has these great qualities?) but this all happened in the past. You can’t have the present tense here.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.
_________________