By the time of Fidelio, it became clear that Beethoven's

Question

By the time of Fidelio, it  became clear  that Beethoven's dramatic and emotionally based composition had revolutionised the structure of classical music itself.

(a) became clear
 (b) clarified
 (c) had clarified
 (d) had become clarified
 (e) had become clear

Could you please explain which is the correct answer and why ?

Thanks

Aj85 · Answer

The sentence is set in past and past of past. Beethoven's music had revolutionised the structure of music and by the time of fidelio this great impact of beethoven's music became apparent to world in general. so two time sequence can be seen.

1. First Beethoven's music revolutionised music itself.
2. After some years (during time of fidelio )this fact became clear to the world in general.

So past perfect is rightly used for 'Beethoven's dramatic and emotionally based composition had revolutionised the structure of classical music itself' and we need simple past for fact which became clear later during Fidelio's time. I chose A.

GMATPASSION · Answer

past perfect is the way to go with the later action in normal past tense.

Practicegmat · Answer

Thanks all for the reply.

I had also marked A. But when I looked for the official answer ( not sure it is official or not ) , I found the answer to be E . Got confused and hence posted this.

The source of my question :

Q 31 from link https://www.bestsamplequestions.com/gmat ... ons-6.html

Then can I assume that the answer given in this link is wrong, and we can safely go with A ?

Thanks

Aj85 · Answer

The site you provided in the link definitely doesn't writes its own questions. hmmm if we add 'had' in the underlined part of sentence, the sentence will have two 'hads' for two different time periods and lose the single past tense event that it has. According to MGMAT sc guide, we can use past perfect construction only when 2 different time periods are involved in the sentence and one should be in simple past. According to option E there is no event described in simple past. how then can we use past perfect tense ? I am not a grammar expert but from what I have read option E doesn't makes sense. But ofcourse we can forget this question -

By the time of Fidelio, it became clear that Beethoven's

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