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

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).

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 ?

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
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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.
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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: 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.

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?

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