Critics say that the government had fallen in the recent election

Question

Critics say that the government  had fallen in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and allowed  the prices of essential commodities to soar unchecked last year.

(A) had fallen in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and allowed

(B) fell out of favor in the recent election because it announced higher tax rates and allowed

(C) fell out of favor in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and allowed

(D) had fallen in the recent election because it announced higher tax rates and allowed

(E) had fallen in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and had allow

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Dear nahid007 , I'm happy to respond. :-)

You may find this article helpful: Past Perfect on GMAT Sentence Correction We know the action of falling in the recent election is the more recent action, and the announcing and allowing were earlier actions. We know that if we use the past perfect at all, we have to use it with the earlier actions. Using the past perfect for the falling is incorrect, so (A), (D) and (E) are out. The question remains whether we need the past perfect for the earlier actions. Notice that the split in (B) & (C) is purely about this. I realize this is marked as an older official question: I will say that modern official question often do not come down to a split such as this. The general rule is that the past participle is redundant if we can discern from other elements of the sentence the time relationship. Well, the sentence lets us know that the announcing and allowing happened "last year," which seems to indicate a time earlier than the elections. More important, the word " because " sets up a causal relationship. The announcing and allowing caused the results of the election, and therefore must precede the election in time. The order of the events is clear from all this, so the past perfect is irrelevant. I would say but the GMAT's current values, the answer would be (B). I have no idea what they deemed the answer on the paper tests. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Nightmare007 · Answer

When there is a specific mention of time frame - fell out - recent election , announced .. and allowed .. last year. I guess there is no need for past perfect. 
 Only B stays while others are out.
-
Hence, Answer is B.

goforgmat · Answer

Hi Mike ,

Sir , 
Isn't it optional to use past perfect tense when there are other time indicators though not considered wrong?
both B and C seem right and i havent come across such a question from GMAC that has two close answers.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear goforgmat , I'm happy to respond. :-)

My friend, it's usually not optional on the GMAT. Remember that the GMAT values concision and elegance and it hates redundancy. Version #1 : I went to South Dakota this past winter, because I went to North Dakota in the previous winter. Version #2 : I went to South Dakota this past winter, because I had gone to North Dakota in the previous winter. In this admittedly colloquial and illogical sentence, both versions would be correct in conversation American English. Think, though, about the priorities of the GMAT. The second version uses one more word, but of course it has the exact same meaning as the first sentence. For the cost of one additional word, what did we get? Zilch. Nada. Paying a cost and getting nothing to show for it--that's never a good deal on the GMAT or in the business world! Admittedly, the modern GMAT doesn't force us to make such niggling choices in current SC questions. It's very good to associate each word used with a cost. Sometimes in advertising or other media, one actually does pay for each word. If not a literal economic cost, each additional word "taxes" the reader's attention. Does the reader get anything more from paying the extra tax, the marginally greater amount of attention? That is the question guiding the GMAT's concern with concision. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

altairahmad · Answer

hi  generis   GMATNinja   daagh   mikemcgarry

For option (C), in absence of 'last year', should there be 'had announced and had allowed' to show that both happened before the government 'fell out of favor' ? or a single 'had announced' and a simple 'allowed' would have been correct ?

I am comparing this scenario to understand this  OG  question, which uses two hads, more thoroughly,

Snehaaaaa · Answer

Even, I have the same question.
Can some expert please put light on this.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

It's certainly possible for a tense-indicating verb such as HAVE or HAD to "distribute" to multiple verbs. So I can read C as "HAD (announced and allowed)." However, we'd usually do that if the two actions are linked in some way. These seem like two completely different actions that the government took, so it would be more clear to use HAD in front of both. However, I'd argue (as others have) that we simply don't need the past perfect at all to have a clear sentence. Remember that we aren't required to use the past perfect every time we have multiple past actions that occurred at different times. This is a necessary condition for the use of the past perfect, not a sufficient condition.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  Snehaaaaa ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the helping verb "had" can indeed collectively apply to multiple past perfect tense constructions that are listed together, but this is not the preferred construction, as it would be clearer to include a separate "had" in each construction.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Vatsal7794 · Answer

Hi Experts

GMATNinja   KarishmaB   EducationAisle   ChrisLele   mikemcgarry   AjiteshArun   egmat   sayantanc2k   RonPurewal   DmitryFarber   MagooshExpert   avigutman   EMPOWERgmatVerbal   MartyTargetTestPrep   ExpertsGlobal5   IanStewart 
other experts  AnthonyRitz

Why option A is wrong?

The action of falling , announcing and allowing happened before saying
So the use of past tense with "Say" and Past Perfect Tense with other three action seems good.

Please explain in detail why A is wrong

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Is "say" really past tense?

Also, does it make sense to you that the events "had fallen," "had announced," and "had ... allowed" occurred at the same time, or would some of those events have occurred earlier than another one?

IanStewart · Answer

The word "say" is not in the past tense in this sentence ("said" would be past tense) ; it's in the present tense. But as posts above explain, the time markers in the sentence mean that the past perfect isn't required anyway.

Another post above questions whether this is a genuine paper test question, and I share those doubts. The split in this sentence isn't one I'd expect the GMAT to test, and there is a bizarre meaning change from "had fallen" to "fell out of favor" in the answer choices, a meaning change I wouldn't expect in an official question. That said, the paper tests are very old and the style of GMAT SC has changed over the years, so I can't be completely sure.

Raman109 · Answer

Critics say that the government  had fallen in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and allowed  the prices of essential commodities to soar unchecked last year.

As mikemcgarry correctly pointed out, "because" is adverbial, modifying the verb "fell," explaining the reason behind "fell." So firstly, the reason has to occur before the effect; moreover, "last year" is a time marker (fell recently, announced and allowed last year - sequence is pretty straightforward). It's a good practice to look for the time marker if you get into such situations to eliminate.

Option Elimination - 
(A) had fallen in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and allowed - Wrong sequence.

(B) fell out of favor in the recent election because it announced higher tax rates and allowed - ok

(C) fell out of favor in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and allowed - deception given the choice with B.

(D) had fallen in the recent election because it announced higher tax rates and allowed -Wrong sequence.

(E) had fallen in the recent election because it had announced higher tax rates and had allow -Wrong sequence.

Critics say that the government had fallen in the recent election

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Critics say that the government had fallen in the recent election

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