Before the Civil War, Harriet Tubman, along with other former slaves

Subject is HT means was is correct. A & B are out.

D is continuous tense and wrong.

C is wrong because it uses had.

We need to reflect the future in the past (Eww!) For lack of better words. IMO, E is correct

A) had become known as the Underground Railroad, and were
(B) would become known as the Underground Railroad, and were
(C) had become known as the Underground Railroad, and was
(D) has been becoming known as the Underground Railroad, and was
(E) would become known as the Underground Railroad, and was

A and B are wrong because were is wrong.
C - Wrong . Because it means that when it was getting constructed it had become known. Changing the meaning of sentence.
D - been becoming - is wrong. This cannot be progressive verb.
E - Correct

Create Railroad ---------> Civil War -------->Underground Railroad

Harriet Tubman, along with other former slaves and white abolitionists = X along with Y and Z Requires a singular Verb since the later part of the sentence claims : .......responsible for leading...... ( This must logically refer to Harriet Tubman, along with .......)

A. had become known as the Underground Railroad, and were - Incorrect.

B. would become known as the Underground Railroad, and were - Incorrect.

C. had become known as the Underground Railroad, and was

Had become refers to completed Action Before Something in the Past which is logically not true.

D. has been becoming known as the Underground Railroad, and was

" Has been " refers to duration from the Past Until Now / Recently/Lately which logically doesn't fint into the context of the sentence..

E. would become known as the Underground Railroad, and was

Would become correctly refers to future actions of the past...

Plz guide me if I am wrong.

Hi all,

I understand that 'were' is incorrect here, but my question is why ?

When you use the condition: if 'past simple' then --> 'would' you should use "were" instead of "was".

It wasn't enforced here because there is no condition, just a description of the past ?

Thanks

Consider this part -

..........Harriet Tubman, along with other former slaves and white abolitionists,............

Refer S-V agremment, whenever the phrase along with is present in a sentence the verb must agree with the Noun precceeding the phrase along with...

Hence, was is correct...

Hi bonke88m, indeed, you might be confusing this with (what's called) hypothetical subjunctive, wherein you need use were. However, this is not that case.

As you rightly mention, this is just a description of the past and so, will follow the regular rules of Subject-verb agreement.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Subjunctive, its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

E

"were" is wrong....hence A and B are out. Also, between C, D and E, "would become" is required and hence E is the answer.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION FROM MANHATTAN

The original sentence contains two flaws. First, "what had become known as the Underground Railroad" is incorrectly in the past perfect tense ("had become"). The past perfect is used to describe a past event that occurred before another past event. In this case, however, the "Underground Railroad" did not become known as such (or known as anything at all) until after it was created, and there is no past action that occurs afterward that would justify the use of the past perfect tense. Second, the subject of the sentence is "Harriet Tubman" only; phrases such as "along with," "accompanied by," and "as well as" do not create plural subjects (only "and" allows for the formation of a plural subject). Yet, the verb used in the original sentence is "were," which suggests a plural subject. Instead, the correct verb form "was" is necessary in order to agree with the singular subject "Harriet Tubman."

(A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) This choice corrects the verb tense by replacing the past perfect with the conditional "would become known" (used to express the future from the point of view of the past: "I said yesterday that I would go to the store today.") However, it does not correct the subject-verb agreement problem (retaining "were").

(C) This choice does not correct the verb tense issue, retaining the incorrect past perfect tense. It does correct the subject-verb agreement by replacing "were" with "was."

(D) This choice uses the incorrect and awkward verb phrase "has been becoming," which incorrectly suggests that the labeling of the Underground Railroad continues to the present day. However, it does correct the subject-verb agreement by replacing "were" with "was."

(E) CORRECT. This choice corrects the verb tense by replacing "had become" with "would become." Moreover, it corrects the subject-verb agreement issue by replacing "were" with "was."

Hi,

Please let me know if the use of "would become" is correct here. We are refering to an action that occured in the past. Then how is this use correct.

Please help me understand.

Thank You
Sonal

Past perfect in c implies it was known as the underground before it was constructed... take note of the 'before' at the beginning of the sentence.f

Hi

Could someone please explain why "had" in (C) is incorrect?
Doesn't Before the Civil War count as an event in the past before which the naming "had" happened?

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma DmitryFarber BillyZ mikemcgarry Sajjad1994

sheldongeorge, Before the civil war sets the timeline for creation, but Had puts a dent to it as had is used to describe the earlier of the 2 related events - creation and coming to be known. Has makes the timeline clearer.

Before the Civil War, Harriet Tubman, ..., helped create ... and was responsible for ...

The sentence talks about something that happened before the civil war. What had happened before the civil war? Harriet Tubman had helped create something. Since we are using "before", the timeline is clear and hence past perfect is not necessary. That is why the sentence uses "helped create" and not "had helped create". This is the non-underlined part.

Now, in the underlined part, we want to say that this "something" that Harriet Tubman helped create later became known as "Underground Railroad". When he created it, it is not possible that it had already been known as "Underground Railroad" because it had not been created yet. Hence use of past perfect here is incorrect.
So what we need is something that talks about future in the past because it would become known as "Underground Railroad" in the future. Hence we use "would".

Answer (E)

Thank you Brian and Karishma! Brian123 VeritasKarishma

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