At the press conference, the President’s spokesman has announced that

Bunuel,

WOuld you pls suggest why D is wrong.
Sentence do have two events,

1. Spokeperson announced ---something which already occurred. SO it should be in simple past tense.
2. Goverment has plans -- I assume usage of "has" here is in simple present only. Even if its is used in present perfect then also we can say that "government plan" is still in effect. So either case it is correct.

WHereas in option B, it says "government plans". Something which sounds as a fact and government always plans so. But neither its intended meaning not it is so.

SO in my opinion option D should be correct answer.
Pls suggest.

abhik1502
Let me try to explain this one:
Whenever you are faced with verb tenses look at the whole sentence especially non- underlined part.

B. At the press conference, the President’s spokesman announced that the government plans to build up a reserve of the smallpox vaccine in case of a biological attack.
You have to understand the meaning with regard to the whole sentence. It says in case of a biological attack government plans to build up a reserve. This seems logical.


D. At the press conference, the President’s spokesman announced that the government has a plan to build up a reserve of the smallpox vaccine in case of a biological attack.
On the other hand D has somewhat illogical construction. In case of biological attack, the government has a plan to build up a reserve.
You can say Eg: In event of a natural disaster, government activates STF.
But this is lil absurd: In event of a natural disaster, the government has activated STF.

Hope it helps.

MANHATTAN REVIEW OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

You must decide whether this sentence requires the simple past or the present perfect. What the president’s spokesman did at a conference occurred at one particular point in time, not over a period of time. Therefore it warrants the simple past tense. That leaves choices B and D. B is more efficient than D. Choice B is the correct answer.

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