Because of the multi-party system in the Netherlands, no single

Concepts tested: Tenses
A – correct.
B - There is a tense mismatch between ‘had held’ and ‘were to be’. Exactly as you said.
C - Tense mismatch between ‘held’ and ‘had been’
D - The past tense ‘held’ is incorrectly paired with the participle ‘being’.
E - There is a mismatch between ‘was holding’ and ‘were formed’.

Hello cubs - Please let me know if this helps to clarify your doubt.

Let's first try to understand what is the author trying to say:

Because of XYZ reason ==> No Single Party has held a majority in the parliament.

From the above sentence, we need a Present Perfect Tense - Because no one has held majority since 19th century, furthermore as this is the only event which was highlighted we cannot use past perfect tense. Also, the use of simple past tense and past continues tense is incorrect over here.

(A) has held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets had to be formed. ==> Correct Tense and meaning

(B) had held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets were to be formed. ==> Usage of "had" is incorrect as there is only one event here.

(C) held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets had been formed. ==> Use of Simpe Past "held" is incorrect

(D) held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets being formed. ==> ==> Use of Simpe Past "held" is incorrect and "being formed" alters the meaning

(E) was holding a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets were formed. ==>Use of past continuous tense is incorrect.

Hence - A

Can someone explain why B was rejected.

B - There is a tense mismatch between ‘had held’ and ‘were to be’.
Is this the issue?

[quote="cubs"]Because of the multi-party system in the Netherlands, no single party has held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets had to be formed.

(A) has held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets had to be formed.

(B) had held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets were to be formed.

(C) held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets had been formed.

(D) held a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets being formed.

(E) was holding a majority in parliament since the 19th century, and coalition cabinets were formed.


chetan2u, Broall aisle,
Sir, can u kindly help me on the above. We have since, so a present perfect ( has held) makes sense. Also, we have a time indicator, so past perfect can work fine. But my only objection with the OA is why do we have the underlined part as coalition cabinets had to be formed.
If the structure would be- coalition cabinets had been formed-->this makes sense. Or coalition cabinets have been formed--> this makes sense.
Had to be formed means are we referring to a past event or a possibility of a future event (unlikely). I am not able to get the meaning.

Thanks Chetan2u, a lot.

SANAM (some, any, none = no, all, more/ most) depends on the context and the logic. Normally, if the noun is plural, verbb is plural, and if noun is singular, verb is singular.
I eliminate the wrong options based on " since the 19th century".

I only took the usage of "Has" with the continuity "since". It neither be "was" nor "Had"

I agree with OA. It says two things (separated by AND i.e. two different information).

Because of the multi-party system in the Netherlands, no single party has held a majority in parliament since the 19th century. ---- "since the 19th century .. till today"
AND
Because of the multi-party system in the Netherlands,coalition cabinets had to be formed.

However, I just want to know the difference between : "had to be formed" and "were to be formed".

Why is B wrong? We can use "had" for a preceding event right?

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