Anouncing that it had had difficulties reaching a decision

Question

Anouncing that  it had had difficulties reaching  a decision because of a lack of data, the panel of scientists said it would not meet again until next year.

A. it had had difficulties reaching
B. it has had difficulties in reaching
C. it has had difficulites reaching
D. they had difficulties reaching
E. they had been finding it difficult to reach

carsen · Answer

My shot..

A is the best choice. Explanations at a later stage.

Paul · Answer

tough one. I'll go with A. past perfect means that the difficulties occured  before  the panel said ...

GoalStanford · Answer

I have been busy lately and did not get chance to look at GMAT stuff at all.I feel rusty.Let me give it a try.

I will go with B.

both "had had" and "has had" look fine. to me. However "has had" is in two choices ,so I would imagine it is better one."They" in the last two is clearly wrong.

Bhai · Answer

B.

The panel has had difficulties in reaching

In A, I think, "difficulties reaching decision" is illogical.

dj · Answer

B for me.
present perfect - 
  HAD   - b/c the action started in the past and is still active. 

this is not a definite explanation--i know--i need to research a bit.

mallelac · Answer

A looks fine for me.

A - 'has/had/have difficulty + doing an effort' is accepted usage. Ex : I have difficulty reaching the spot.
B, C - Missing sense of tense (past tense has to be maintained through out the sentence)
D,E - 'They' is unacceptable as the panel collectively had the difficulty. Were they divided in facing the difficulty, it would be 'they'.

srijay007 · Answer

30 secs

A

"has had" is not correct tense
use of "they" is not consistent with portion of sentence that is not underlined

jpv · Answer

(A) by POE.

(D) & (E) They can't be used for Collective Singular Noun Panel.
and since we require past tense, so we can eliminate (B) & (C).

That leaves (A), however, I have never found a sentence like this having two HAD. Do anybody know the usage in these situation? Please share..

Thanks

mba · Answer

(A) it is, no second thought!

we need "had had" to show the time frame, (Panel had difficulties)

(B) is wrong for "has had" and "in reaching" which sounds unidiomatic to me.

sid_477 · Answer

Since the committee has already reached a decison present perfect is not needed and had had is perfectly idiomatic and concise....i wud go wit (A) too.

lastochka · Answer

the OA is A, though I'm still unclear as to why 'had had' is superior to 'has had' in this case.

mallelac · Answer

'had had' is superior to 'has had' in this case because of the sense of tense. We need to maintain parallelism in tense. The first clause cannot be present perfect and the next, simple past.

Marat2005 · Answer

sequence of events
1) it had had difficulties reaching a decision
then
2) panel of scientists said it would not meet again 

Past perfect means that event had appeared before some moment or event in the past. Present perfect means that event have appeared before now or some moment/event in present.

Anouncing that it had had difficulties reaching a decision

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