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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 29 Jun 2012, 02:05
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list among starting players, the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians.

(A) its many difficulties had been the recent
(B) its many difficulties has been the recently
(C) its many difficulties is the recently
(D) their many difficulties is the recent
(E) their many difficulties had been the recent
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 17 Sep 2015, 23:16
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"Recently" can absolutely modify "growing." In fact, that's the option that makes most sense here. However, this problem is a flawed imitation of a real problem (#53 in the 2016 OG Verbal Review, #48 in the previous edition). In that problem, the phrase "recent extended sales slump" was correct, differing greatly in meaning from "recently extended sales slump," which is grammatically okay but makes it sound like someone chose to extend the slump.

This problem doesn't mirror the logic of the original and doesn't really make sense in its current form. I'd recommend that everyone ignore it and focus on the official version.
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 28 Sep 2015, 09:00
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daagh
The term team is singular and therefore you require its; the adverb recently can not modify the adjective growing. Therefore, you need an adjective – recent -. The word recent implies a finished event and the past perfect had been appropriately fits in. A is the one that fulfills all the criteria
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Why cant recently modify adjective growing ?
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 15 Jul 2017, 09:24
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daagh
The term team is singular and therefore you require its; the adverb recently can not modify the adjective growing. Therefore, you need an adjective – recent -. The word recent implies a finished event and the past perfect had been appropriately fits in. A is the one that fulfills all the criteria
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I thought the rule was that adverbs could modify adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs. Why can't recently modify growing?
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 29 Jul 2017, 02:19
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Again, "recently" can modify "growing," and in this case, it should. See my post above.
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 30 Jul 2017, 00:25
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Here is how I approach the question

Basically I look at growing as an adjective (gerund) just to test whether to use recent or recently I replace growing with the noun form (growth)

Would it make sense to say recently growth or recent growth?

I hope this clarifies your inquiries.

All the best
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 30 Jul 2017, 02:15
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Salsanousi, you are mixing up adjective forms (present participles) and noun forms (gerunds). In this case, "growing" is serving as an adjective. It's not a gerund, and should not be modified by "recent." If we used "recent" here, it would modify "list," not "growing."
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 24 Oct 2017, 01:39
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Ans: A

This is how I reasoned:

Cut 1: Conditional Tenses

The second half of the sentence mentions "the team would start a month......"
Since WOULD is used, we cannot combine this with a present tense as in options B,C and D. All these options use present tense (is, has)
Had the second half of the sentence said " the team WILL start a month...." , Is and Has could've been used

Cut 2: SVA

The team is singular, therefore, IT has to be used.
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 24 Oct 2018, 22:05
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daagh
The term team is singular and therefore you require its; the adverb recently can not modify the adjective growing. Therefore, you need an adjective – recent -. The word recent implies a finished event and the past perfect had been appropriately fits in. A is the one that fulfills all the criteria
Show more

Hi,
Can someone clarify the point, why- 'recently', an adverb, cannot modify an adjective 'growing'.
As we all know, an adverb modifies anything other than a noun.

Correct me if I m wrong and help me clarify the use of "recent" in this purview of this question.\

Thanks in advance
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 25 Oct 2018, 04:56
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daagh
The term team is singular and therefore you require its; the adverb recently can not modify the adjective growing. Therefore, you need an adjective – recent -. The word recent implies a finished event and the past perfect had been appropriately fits in. A is the one that fulfills all the criteria
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Hi,

Adverbs can modify adjectives so I don't understand why this is wrong?
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 19 Dec 2018, 00:16
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kapilhede17
Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list among starting players, the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians.

(A) its many difficulties had been the recent
(B) its many difficulties has been the recently
(C) its many difficulties is the recently
(D) their many difficulties is the recent
(E) their many difficulties had been the recent
Show more



"The baseball team said" is in past so the difficulties also need to be in past.
B, C, D use present tense and can be eliminated.
"its" is not the correct pronoun for "team" so A can be eliminated.
E it is.
Rather easy.
Happy if it is really a hard question :)
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 25 Feb 2019, 00:25
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B C D all are in the wrong tense. E uses a plural pronoun (their) for a singular noun (team)
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 28 Jan 2020, 12:08
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Why option E is wrong? In British English collective nouns are considered singular whereas plural in American English. It is impossible to differentiate them, if there is no hint regarding them, such as verb tense, of modifier added to them indication plural or singular,etc.

In the below mentioned question, the answer E takes singular pronoun for collective noun 'Public'.
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 28 Jan 2020, 19:49
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avinashiitp
Why option E is wrong? In British English collective nouns are considered singular whereas plural in American English. It is impossible to differentiate them, if there is no hint regarding them, such as verb tense, of modifier added to them indication plural or singular,etc.

In the below mentioned question, the answer E takes singular pronoun for collective noun 'Public'.
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Hi avinashiitp,

1. I don't know which (other) question you are referring to, but there is an it in the non-underlined portion of the sentence. That decides the issue.

2. You can also take a look at the official question that this question is based on.

3. It's actually the opposite: BrE, plural/singular, AmE, generally singular.

4. It's not as if collective nouns are always considered plural in BrE. They are just more likely to be considered plural.
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 29 Jan 2020, 10:47
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Hi AjiteshArun

You are absolutely write about the it(completely missed that) in the non underlined part.

Regarding the other question, I forgot to remove that statement in my post.

Again, thank you for your explanation.
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 18 Oct 2020, 09:18
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DmitryFarber
Again, "recently" can modify "growing," and in this case, it should. See my post above.
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DmitryFarber
Hi,
Kindly look into my query please.
"the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians." This Non-underlined part of sentence is Reported Speech so said & would verb make sense but isn't the underlined sentence "Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list " is a direct speech example, so present perfect will be better.
Do we have any such example in which direct & indirect speech sentences are mixed. I have tried searching on the web but got no suitable result. If possible , plz help.
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 13 Mar 2021, 12:18
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list among starting players, the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians.

(A) its many difficulties had been the recent -> Its refers to XYZ team, It is okay. Further, we are in past tense "said" gives a hint, so "had been" is correct form of tense. Let's keep it.
(B) its many difficulties has been the recently -> Tense agreement issue. We need past tense.
(C) its many difficulties is the recently -> Same as B.
(D) their many difficulties is the recent -> Pronoun error. "their" doesn't refer to "XYZ team".
(E) their many difficulties had been the recent-> Same as D.

So, I think A. :)
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 20 Apr 2022, 22:55
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THERE IS NO USE PAST PERFECT AS NO PAST TENSE VERB ATTACHED WITH HAD..... THIS IS MY DOUBBT .. KINDLY EXPALIN
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 22 Apr 2022, 05:41
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kakakakaak
THERE IS NO USE PAST PERFECT AS NO PAST TENSE VERB ATTACHED WITH HAD..... THIS IS MY DOUBBT .. KINDLY EXPALIN
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Hello kakakakaak,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in this sentence the past perfect tense construction is "had + been"; here, "been" is the past participle version of "be"; remember, "had + past participle" is the correct past perfect tense construction.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 23 Apr 2022, 18:05
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kapilhede17
Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the recent growing injury list among starting players, the minor league baseball team said it would start a month-long search for better physical trainers and physicians.

(A) its many difficulties had been the recent
(B) its many difficulties has been the recently
(C) its many difficulties is the recently
(D) their many difficulties is the recent
(E) their many difficulties had been the recent
Show more

B is the only one that works, "its" becomes "team's" and "has been" means the issue with "growing injury list..." is an issue that started in the past and continues
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Explaining that one of its many difficulties had been the 26 Apr 2022, 11:48
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The injury list is recent and is growing which means the problem still persists. Then why is " has been" wrong?

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