Before the storm destroyed much of the harbor, this town, with its san

Question

Before the storm destroyed much of the harbor, this town, with its sandy beaches and multiple opportunities for sports,  had been   one of the most popular resort destinations on the East Coast.

A. had been

B. has been

C. had been being

D. was being

E. was

What is the problem in A ? Because I think past perfect is necessary as by using simple past distorts the meaning

angel2009 · Accepted Answer

IMO  E . This will be a big trap for anyone who automatically applies past perfect tense. Because if the answer choice were (A), it would be too easy to qualified to be a Gmat question. So, lets think that the test makers wouldn't be so good that they could give us such a chance to score an easy point

Back to the main point, we can completely apply past simple here because the attractiveness of a tourist spot is not only a simple action happened before another action in the past, but it is indeed a so-called trade-mark of a place. So, it's like an unchanged-thing in the past rather than a spontaneous action in the past

Before the storm destroyed much of the harbor, this town, with its sandy beaches and multiple opportunities for sports,  had been  one of the most popular resort destinations on the East Coast.

1.had been
2. has been
3. had been being
4. was being
5. was

jamifahad · Answer

Manhattan's rule for using Past Perfect:

1. Past Perfect is used to clarify or emphasize a sequence of past events. The earlier event should somehow have a bearing on the context of the later event.
2. The words "before" and "after" indicate the sequence of events clearly and emphatically enough to make the use of the Past Perfect unnecessary.

Before here clearly indicates the sequence of events. Town was most popular and then storm destroyed the town.
Hence use of HAD BEEN is unwarranted in this situation. Simple Past Tense will should be used.

OA E.

carcass · Answer

here we need verb agreement: we have destroyed........that indicate a tense totally gone. finished. it's over

so, E is the right answer. if you ahve doubt on this, maybe a problem with question much more difficult

You must think on this question not more than ten seconds

charleshsu0952 · Answer

In my opinion, (A) is not wrong, but when we compared (A) with (E), (A) is more redundant than (E) because the use of "before" in the sentence has shown the order of different time. That's why (E) is better than (A).

Darmody · Answer

Is it a real thing ? I mean, from my understanding, it does not matter whether the sequence of events is already clear or not, as a grammatical rule you SHOULD use past perfect to refer to an event which happens before another one and both events are somehow related. I think had been is perfectly correct here, and as it is the original sentence I don't see why we should change it. Any expert insight on this one ?

Vercules · Answer

Hi Darmody,

I too had the same doubt; everyone says that we should use past perfect verb when we want to express an event that happened before another event. I came across such sentence and was surprised.

However, it is a real thing. Past perfect tense is used to indicate such a past action, but if the meaning of the sentence clearly marks such a sequence then the use of past perfect would be considered as redundant (or in other words less preferred). Such a sentence would be grammatically correct, but if you have an answer choice without the past perfect then that would be the better one. I have not really seen an official question which tests this exception, however it could be tested, so, just make a note of this rule.

Hope that helps,

Vercules

Narenn · Answer

Manhattan's rule for using Past Perfect:

Apart from the above there are more other situations mentioned in MGMT guide in which use of past perfect is not required even when two actions have occurred in the past and one before the other.
1. If both the actions are performed by the same subject OR if the time sequence is already obvious then we do not require past perfect.
 e.g. Antonio  drove  to the store and  bought  some icecream 
2. Main clauses linked by AND or BUT do not require the past perfect. The reason is that in such case we are not emphasizing the order or time sequence here.
 e.g. Antonio  drove  to the store and Cristina  bought  some icecream

Regards,

Abhijit

Amit0507 · Answer

Before the storm destroyed much of the harbor, this town, with its sandy beaches and multiple opportunities for sports,  had been  one of the most popular resort destinations on the East Coast.

A-had been
B -has been
C -had been being
D -was being
E -was

<Amit> I marked it 'A' (although it sounds inappropriate) considering the event happened before a past event. The correct answer is 'WAS'. Please clarify my understanding on this.

pqhai · Answer

Hi Amit.

As far as I know, verb tenses are "basic" but in fact difficult (if the questions only test you about verb tenses). The basic idea of past perfect is that one action completed before another action also completed in the past.

The past perfect form is: X (completed before Y) and Y also completed in the past.

Normally, if you want to emphasize Y ==> we use "past perfect" for X
However, if you want to emphasize X ==>  the fact Y happened in the past does not matter  ==> we use "simple past" for X.

In this question, the point we want to emphasize is "this town was the most popular resort destinations on the East Coast", not " the storm destroyed much of the harbor". ==> The fact about when storm happened does not matter. ==> "WAS" is more appropriate.

IMO, this question is NOT easy, the difference between "had been" and "was" is very subtle.

Hope it helps.

Abhishek009 · Answer

One of the most beautiful resort on the East Coast--------- > Storm---------> Destroyed Everything.

A clear picture can be drawn from the given statement - Sentence points out clearly the word before - Hence simple past tense is used , because  we can clearly understand which actions / incident happened bofre something in the past.

Hence answer is (E)...

iPen · Answer

I see (A) as being no more redundant than (E). Taken to the extreme, if "before" signals the past, then "was" shouldn't be grammatically allowed out of redundancy either. And, what about the  continuous nature  implied in "had been", where the town continuously ranked at the top, as opposed to, say, just one period before the storm, in which case "was" is appropriate?

I believe that the justification for (E) is that you cannot infer the town's continuous rank. It doesn't say anywhere else in the sentence the continuous nature of the town's rank, and the town's past status is in fact the portion we're correcting. Therefore, the most we can know is that it was   at least once   ranked as a top East Coast destination. If, however, the GMAT required readers to take the  entire  meaning of the original sentence as-is, then (A) must be correct (but the GMAT doesn't, since the original sentence may or may not be correct).

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

Before the storm destroyed much of the harbor, this town, with its sandy beaches and multiple opportunities for sports,  had been  one of the most popular resort destinations on the East Coast.

A)had been  Since we have the cue "before," the past perfect isn't necessary to indicate which action took place. 
 E)was

iPen · Answer

OptimusPrepJanielle : There's one explanation on this forum that seems to contradict what you say, which is why I'm confused. Found in the following link: has-have-had-been-difference-185791.html "Before the teacher entered the room, John had been cheating on the exam." (First, John was in the act of cheating on the exam. Later, the teacher walked in. Did John stop because the teacher walked in? Or had he already stopped for some other reason before she walked in? We don't know - but the OG prefers to interpret this as: John cheated. Then John stopped. Then the teacher walked into the room.) According to the above, with the use of "before", (A) and (E) are equivalent. That still leads us to at least three different justifications, 2 for (E) and 1 for (A), depending on what takes priority: 1. Be concise , (E) correct: (A) is grammatically correct, and (E) takes priority only because it's less wordy and slightly less redundant (if at all). 2. Go with what we know , (E) correct: "Was" and "had been" are still different, because in the example above, John "was" cheating before the teacher walked in , may mean he was cheating at one time, say, 1 hour beforehand. Whereas, John "had been" cheating before the teacher walked in means John cheated on the exam for a while or for an unknown duration up until and because the teacher walked in. In which case, (E) changes the meaning of (A), and we accept (E) only because there is no way to know for sure how long something was going on before the storm, since the past duration and even cause is exactly what we're correcting in the sentence. Therefore, (E) is at least true, and (A) is possible but not known 100%. 3. Preserve Meaning , (A) correct: In contrast to (2), if we were to accept the original sentence's meaning , then (A) must be true, and (E) must be false, because there was an unknown duration of X before Y, and the storm directly causes X's duration to stop; it's not simply a one time occurrence of X sometime before the storm with a causal relationship not necessarily existing - only a temporal relationship is established by the word "before". For example, "Before the war, I was a singer, a dancer, and a mathematician." This only means sometime before the war, one was a singer, a dancer, and a mathematician, and not necessarily that the war caused one to cease being a singer, dancer, and mathematician. One could just be recalling a memory from long ago, and the war is just a major life event or reference point to recall a memory. The real question is, whose question is this? OG? Manhattan? Magoosh? If it's from OG, then whatever the justification, go with their rule. If it's another's example, then it's still confusing. In that case, we'll need a different OG example in the same sort of setup (e.g. had been vs. was, "before" used, "had been"/"was" is underlined for correction) to clarify this matter.

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

Use of the past perfect or simple past is optional when used with conjunctions. For GMAT optional is often synonymous with redundant. Here's a nice quick explanation in the "special cases" section: https://www.perfectyourenglish.com/gramm ... -tense.htm

iPen · Answer

Thanks for the link! I'm thinking that "was" is still preferred over "had been", for one past action before another, even in the special case when we want to emphasize the idea of completion. But, why would they call it a special case if it wasn't necessary? That "had been" is still grammatically correct, though "was" takes preference?

Abhishek009 · Answer

https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?mode=view&id=28559

Here we are presented with a sentence where clearly it is stated which event precceeds which one.

Thus we can say that before the storm the town was most popular.

When we are certain about the precedence / occurence of a certain event in the time elements ( In this case the starting - Before the storm .....) we do not need past perfect tense.

Past Perfect Tense must only be used to express the idea that a certain event precceeds another event in the timeline.

To me Befoe + had been for this particular sentence is redundent.

Hence I am with (E), simple past Was

kittle · Answer

egmat

I know that option A, "had been" would further reinforce. Is that understanding correct? I have studied in egmat modules that reinforcement happens when a marker is there and on top of it, "past perfect" tense is also used.

DmitryFarber · Answer

There's a simple solution to this SC question--ignore it!

A proper SC question should not rely exclusively on an optional feature, such that we are choosing between two grammatically correct answers that essentially say the same thing! The rules about past perfect tell us what is needed for it to be used. They do not tell us whether it must or must not be used once the basic requirement (one past event that precedes another) is met. Sure, E is clear enough, and I'd probably write the sentence that way. But that doesn't make A wrong.

kittle · Answer

Thanks Dmitry. It is great to get response from experts like you so that the quality of this platform is not diluted. There are just N number of questions on this platform that have no wonder N number of different explanations to prove the answers right. I encourage you all to keep sharing on your views on these non-official questions so that students like me are able to separate the good quality questions from bad quality ones.

Thanks again.

Bunuel   bb   GMATNinja   egmat   KarishmaB

Before the storm destroyed much of the harbor, this town, with its san

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Before the storm destroyed much of the harbor, this town, with its san

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards