Before M.S. Dhoni won the world cup for India, he was fairly

Its C
the rule is 'We use the Past Perfect Continuous to show that something started in the past and continued up until another time in the past'

Dhoni was poor till he won the world cup .. It says all the while from his childhood... till he won the WC , he was fairly poor and things changed after WC. Both these events are in the past but one before the other.One he being fairly poor continued till he won the WC.

The simple past + past perfect rule (where simple past indicates an action which happened in a moment in the past, and past perfect indicates another action which was completed even before this later moment in the past) can be applied here.
dhoni won the world cup : simple past, the action happened in past
had been poor: past perfect: the action of being fairly poor was even befoe the past action of winning the world cup. hence past perfect is correct form being used here.

All said about rules, my query is- presense of before itself gives the idea of time sequence then why we need to add had to show the time sequence ?

if I remeber it correctly something on similar lines is mentioned on MGMAT SC book as well...

Yes, even i read about the same saying that we need not use perfect tenses when BEFORE or AFTER are mentioned to explain the sequence of events..
Verbal Experts- Please explain

Thanks
LC

The rule says that when the words before and after are used we don't need to use past perfect tense to clarify the sequence of events. The answer for this question seems to not adhere to this rule??? Are there any exceptions to this rule? Someone plz explain...

sudhir18n's explanation makes perfect sense.

A) Before M.S. Dhoni won the world cup for India, he was fairly poor.
This is not grammatically incorrect, but perhaps doesn't convey what it intends to. This sentence tells us that Dhoni was poor, then after few years(say 20 years) he won the world cup and became rich. So, we don't know the clear picture of the 20 years between him being poor AND him winning the cup. What was he during these 20 years-- rich, poor.

C) clears the doubt.
Dhoni was constantly poor until he won the World Cup. This continuous event prior to his win is correctly described by "had been". "was" doesn't describe the progressive too well.

Not to confuse you, but in reality, Dhoni actually got richer much before winning the WC, thus raising a doubt which statement to choose. Also, "A" and "C" both seem correct for someone who doesn't know who is Dhoni. Whether he was poor until the win or poor long before winning the WC.

Not GMAT like.

here I do not think anyone is supposed to know him personally or for the matter does GMAC requires so ? I doubt! What I understand with this original sentence is- it's trying to say 2 time period one before WC win and other one after the win (which is clear with the original one...no?). on the second thought in C- we are assuming he has been constantly poor- not given unless you know factually but does not it distorts the original sentence ?

Fluke I was referring to T20 WC win by the way!

Yeah, even I meant T20 WC. But, that's beyond the point. I'd still consider this sentence ambiguous.

Firstly, we can't completely deduce the intent from the underlined portion of the sentence because the underlined portion can change tenses and tone. Secondly, "C" gives an alternate scenario that's perfectly possible.

So far I know which tense to use in which scenario, I'm not going to dig any further into what author intended when she created this question.

Hi egmat,
Please explain what is wrong with A . As before clearly shows sequence .

Could you please explain Why A is not the answer ?
Thank you

A should be the correct answer; "Before" already shows the sequence, and hence the use of past perfect is unnecessary. OA changed.

Nice one..Answer is A.."Before" convey every thing about sequence..
(((And i m from MS Dhoni's home town )

Option A.

I am sure many of us would be confused between option A and C
Given sentence has time marker "Before" which makes the sequence of events clear. Hence Past perfect is not required.

Knowledge source: MGMAT SC
Hope it helps.
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