Bunuel wrote:
As soon as the residents of Florida’s east coast finished evacuating their homes, they had learned that the hurricane track had changed dramatically and the storm would miss the entire state.
A. had learned that the hurricane track had changed
B. have learned that the hurricane track changed
C. have learned that the hurricane track had changed
D. learned that the hurricane track had changed
E. are learning that the hurricane track has changed
VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:
This problem features three verb tenses that all exist, at least in part, in the past. There's the simple past tense (finished/learned/changed), which is used to express that an event completed prior to the present. There's the past perfect tense (had learned, had changed), which is used to signal that an event concluded before another past tense event. And there's the present perfect (have learned, has changed), which connotes that an event began in the past and is still ongoing.
When you see that you have a choice between these tenses, you want to review the sentence to establish a logical timeline, and eliminate any sequences-of-events that are incorrect. Here, the phrase "as soon as" at the beginning of the sentence helps to define a timeline: it means that "finished evacuating" and "learned" happen simultaneously. For this reason, you must have a simple past tense for "learned" to match "finished." Answer choice D must then be correct.
Note that the past perfect tense of "had changed" is logical in choice D, also. it is certainly possible to learn that something had already occurred - this timeline would connote that while the residents were evacuating, the hurricane was changing path. And then when the residents finished, they learned about the event that had occurred previously. Because this timeline makes sense - the events certainly could have happened in this order and the timeline language in the sentence does not suggest otherwise - this is a valid verb tense.
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