Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning is that restrictions on the use of water would continue because a significantly large increase in the level of the river had not resulted from the showers.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.
• "no + noun" is an idiomatic construction used to refer to the absence of a noun.

A: Trap. This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "appreciative increase"; the use of "appreciative" illogically implies that a grateful increase in the level of the river had not resulted from the showers; the intended meaning is that a significantly large increase in the level of the river had not resulted from the showers. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "resulted" to refer to the earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - the government making an announcement and a significantly large increase in the level of the river not occurring; please remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "appreciative increase"; the use of "appreciative" illogically implies that a grateful increase in the level of the river had not resulted from the showers; the intended meaning is that a significantly large increase in the level of the river had not resulted from the showers. Further, Option B uses the needlessly indirect phrase "restricting the use of water" and the passive voice construction "there had not been any", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "not + any + noun ("appreciable increase")" to refer to the absence of an appreciable increase in the level of the river; please remember, "no + noun" is an idiomatic construction used to refer to the absence of a noun. Further, Option C uses the needlessly wordy phrase "the use of water would continue to be restricted", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "appreciable increase"; the use of "appreciable" conveys the intended meaning - that a significantly large increase in the level of the river had not resulted from the showers. Further, Option D correctly uses the past perfect tense verb "had resulted" to refer to the earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - the government making an announcement and a significantly large increase in the level of the river not occurring. Additionally, Option D correctly uses the idiomatic construction "no + noun ("appreciable increase")" to refer to the absence of an appreciable increase in the level of the river. Besides, Option D is free of any awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "resulted" to refer to the earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - the government making an announcement and a significantly large increase in the level of the river not occurring; please remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "not + any + noun ("appreciable increase")" to refer to the absence of an appreciable increase in the level of the river; please remember, "no + noun" is an idiomatic construction used to refer to the absence of a noun. Additionally, Option E uses the passive voice construction "using water would continue being restricted", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

Additional Note: Please note, "appreciable" means "significant enough to be noted", and "appreciative" means "grateful" or "thankful"; the two words are similar, but have completely different meanings.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

'Appreciable ' is the correct usage.

That leaves us with D and E. Between those options, in E ' because NOT any' sounds awkward, so does ' would continue Being'. Hence, D is the winner.

Hope that helps!

Please give kudos if that helped

Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciative increase in the level of the river resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before .

D)restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had



I am not convinced with D. How Can there be two Past perfect in a single sentence ?

Shouldn't there be simple past 'Resulted' instead of 'Had resulted' as Increase in level obviously would occur after showers had fallen ?

it is reporting sentence that is why one needs to use Past Perfect in place where in direct speech would use Past Simple

“appreciative” means “showing gratitude”
"appreciable" means "substantial or significant "

so showers took place first then water level increased and then govt officials announced the restrictions
(past perfect) (past perfect) (simple past)

So we have 3 main events to sequence here:
1. Officials announced
2. Resulted
3. Fallen

"Announced" is part of an independent clause and "resulted" is its dependant clause. it makes sense to sequence those 2 events. from the context, if makes sense that "announced" happened after "resulted".

Now, since "fallen" is accompanied by "the day before", it is clear that the 2 events in the past did not occur at the same time, and that fallen is the oldest event out of the three.

=> D is correct

Got confused with the use of 'had+past participle' two times.
In what cases can this structure be used?

I know one thing that when words such as 'before' and 'after' are used in a sentence, past perfect tense for the earlier event becomes optional. In this sentence there are 3 RELATED events:
(1) Intermittent showers that had fallen the day before
(2) No appreciable increase in the level of the river
(3) Restrictions on the use of water would continue

(The event 'government officials announced' is not a related event therefore did not mention it in the list above)

If there are more than two related events, can the past perfect be used two times (like in this one) or it depends on other factors?

Will this construction make sense?
Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before .

GMATNinja need your help here please.

I'm not an expert but I'll try to explain.
The 3 verbs here are announced, resulted, and fallen.
The main verb is announced and we need to make it clear that the water not rising happened before announcing, we need a past perfect usage. Had resulted

Now there are 2 past perfect usages. Had resulted and had fallen. Between these 2, with the usage the day before, it is clear that the first incident is the shower falling.
Thus the whole sequencing issues are sorted.

Hi Expert

Option C vs Option D

Since i have solved Almost all OG Questions available till now , i was quite confident that every wrong option have some fundamental issues than just being awkward


As per my understanding,

The only issue i found in Option C was the use of "Not any" instead of No (which i dont think has any problem)

But the issue i found in Option D was restrictions on the use of water would continue

Here restrictions is subject , and as per my understanding the Govt. official must have said " restrictions on the use of water will continue???????"
= Restriction will continue

i think more proper statement would be " restrictions on the use of water will be continued???????" ,As restriction cant do any action on its own.
Although its a very subtle issue .
Please let me know where my reasoning is wrong ( although i am searching for any comparable sentence structure in OG. which has same issue )

Thanks

I wish that were true , but unfortunately, there are some options that are incorrect only because they are awkward.

You're right about the "no". I can see something like "because no appreciable increase resulted..." being used, but "because not any appreciable increase resulted..." seems to be wrong. Apart from that, the to be restricted in option C is passive.

Think of this as a "backshift".

1. He says that he will deliver the pizza on time. ← We have says and will deliver here.
2. He said that he would deliver the pizza on time. ← The says becomes said and will becomes would.

Not everything in English is so clear-cut . Here, continue just means "stay in effect". Similarly, it's okay to say something like the TV show will continue.

AjiteshArun
Choice C and D (correct choice) says:

C) Government officials announced that the use of water would continue to be restricted because not any appreciable increase in the river's level had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.

D) Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.

If C is ok (apart from the wrong use of NOT ANY) the green part should be correctly translated to red part to hold the actual meaning, right?
So...My thinking says:
The passive of restrictions on the use of water would continue could be the use of water would continue to be restricted
How the infinitive (to) came here? What the grammar says about it, actually?

Also, can you share the following versions:
1/ the river's level
2/ the level of the river
Thanks

Request Expert Reply:
Hi honorable experts,
MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, GMATGuruNY, VeritasPrepHailey, BrightOutlookJenn, AjiteshArun
Q1:
Could you explain the following versions, please? It would help my prep for sure.
1/
Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.

2/
Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the river's level had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.

Q2:
If someone announced something which one will be better version in the starting part?
1/ Economists announced that VERBing blah blah.....
2/ Economists announced that NOUN blah blah....
Is there any official version(s) where GMAC used the first one (verbING...)?

Q3:
Why there is a hypothetical 'would'? What if the option is written as:
Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water WILL continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.
Is it still ok? Any difference with the official sentence?

Q4:
I did not find any logic to use past perfect (had resulted). All we know that there should have another time-frame (mostly past form) if we have 'had resulted'. Could you help me to find the task that happened before 'had resulted' (apart from had fallen throughout the area the day before)?

What if someone says:
Government officials have announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river _______(which form/tense of 'result' has to use in the gap) from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.

Sorry for so many questions at a time.
Expecting a wonderful response.

Hi TheUltimateWinner,

Continue can be followed by a full infinitive (to + plain form) or a gerund (-ing), so we need a to in that position before the plain form. That is, restrictions would continue be restricted is just not possible. By the way, did you assume that to be restricted is part of the verb? The verb is would continue, not to be restricted. For example:

1. She would continue to speak. ← This is fine.
2. She would continue speak. ← This one is not correct.
3. She would continue speaking. ← This is fine.

As for the river's level and the level of the river, I've heard both, so I'd probably try not to take a decision on that particular split.

Request Expert Reply:
Hi honorable experts,
MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, GMATGuruNY, VeritasPrepHailey, BrightOutlookJenn, AjiteshArun
The correct choice:
Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.
Q1:
How the day before confirmed that falling intermittent showers has occurred first?. Which day we're talking about?
Actually, i did not find any actual reason to use 'past perfect' tense here in this case!

Q2:
What if someone says:
Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the intermittent showers.
Is the sentence still legit?

It's appropriate to use the past perfect when the action in question was completed before something else in the past. The only way you'd determine if this is the case is by evaluating either 1) descriptive time stamps, such as "by 1923," or 2) other verbs in the sentence.

So take another look at the correct sentence and focus on those structural clues:


The main verb of the sentence is "announced," and we know that this is a simple past tense action. We're also told that the other actions, "resulted" and "fallen" occurred "the day before." Because the other actions were completed the day before the officials "announced," those other actions should be in the past perfect.

As for your sample sentence, it appears as though you lopped off the last part containing the phrase "the day before." So while your example isn't wrong, I wouldn't say that the past perfect is absolutely required here -- for all we know, the showers were still occurring when the announcement was made. Without the time stamp, there's no way to know what sequence the writer intended. The lesson, as always, is that context and logic are important.

For much more on verb tenses, check out this video.

I hope that helps!

Hi

Can anyone point out how the use of 'would' is correct in this sentence? I think 'will continue' should be correct.

Here is my understanding:

Would is used to express uncertaininty/ expectations about the future/ hypothetical condition/ assumption. The announcement does not fall in any of these categories. Please guide.

The other usage of "would" is to depict when something about future was expressed in the past.

For example:

James said that he would work hard for GMAT.

This is exactly what's going on here: Government officials announced (in the past) something about future (restrictions would continue). Hence, the usage of "would" is correct.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses the usage of "would", its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.