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

“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)

'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

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

Hey Vegita

Happy to help you with these questions.



No, that would be incorrect. The verb in the clause "there had not been any appreciative increase in the river's level" is "had (not) been". The main verb is "been" and the helping verb is "had". This means that this verb is already in the past perfect tense.




Yes, you're right that this "clause" (not phrase) is not passive. Once again, we understand this from the verb "had been". The "be" verb is a stative verb. This means that it is used to convey the state of the subject and not an action performed by the subject. Stative verbs do NOT have any passive form. Only Action Verbs (a.k.a Dynamic verbs) can have a passive voice.

For example:

a. I am Abhishek. (Stative verb "am". This sentence has no passive.)
b. I killed a mosquito. (Action verb "killed". This sentence has a passive: A mosquito was killed by me.)

Sentences such as 'a' above can, at best, be inverted. For example, "The car is there", can be written as "There is the car". And this is precisely what we see in this official sentence, an inverted structure.
"There had not been any appreciative increase in the river's level" is the inverted form of "No appreciative increase in the river's level had been there".

So, if anyone has mentioned that this clause is in the passive, they perhaps meant that it has been written in reverse or in a roundabout manner.



No, this is incorrect. This clause is in the Active voice and not passive voice.

No appreciable increase in the level of the river had resulted from the showers.

The subject here is "no appreciable increase in the level of the river", and its active verb is "had resulted". So, this clause is active and direct. This is one of the reasons why choice D is the best of the given choices.


One final observation:
I'm not sure whether you've identified this or not, but there is a Diction Error in the first two choices.

"Appreciative" Vs "Appreciable"

Appreciative = The quality of appreciating something
Appreciable = Substantial/Significant

Hence, the right word for the context is "appreciable" and not "appreciative".


I hope this answers all your questions. Please revert for further clarification, if required.


Happy Learning!

Abhishek

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

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.

I agree with you in principle, Pankaj0901. In a sentence with two verbs to consider, the past perfect might be optional. However, this one would be a bit jarring, because we have three verbs to consider, two of which are fixed—i.e. we cannot negotiate announced or had fallen—and there is a sort of tug-of-war between simple past and past perfect in that second verb, resulted or had resulted. Using the simple past resulted would beg the question, Why, since there were two other events that occurred at a prior time to the announcement, does only one receive "special" or "understood" treatment? Remember, our goal is to play it safe with SC, to select an answer that clearly conveys the vital meaning of the given sentence. So, rather than approach the issue from the angle that something might be possible, it would be more useful to ask which option between (A) and (D) is safer? I cannot object to the meaning conveyed by (D), whereas the original sentence, specifically its logical predication (simple past-simple past-past perfect), is open to debate.

Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

Would suggest that you continue to give preference to an option that does use "past perfect" even when some sequence marker is present (of course assuming that the option is correct in all other respects).

Another sentence that uses past perfect, despite the usage of sequence marker "before":

The personal income tax did not become permanent in the United States until the First World War; before that time the federal government had depended on tariffs as its main source of revenue.

In fact, there are numerous such official sentences.

The main reason to use past perfect here is to clarify that the "resulted" action happened before the "announced" action. (For more on that, check out this post.) Just because the past perfect isn't strictly necessary doesn't mean that it can't be used to help the reader keep the timeline straight.

Is the simple past ("resulted") wrong in (A)? Probably not. But between that and the incorrect usage of "appreciative" (which means "showing gratitude"), (D) is the better option.

I hope that helps a bit!

It's super subtle... And I might even go so far as to say "Pick whichever."

But "Level of the river" is the level to which the river rose. It's 'how high' the river rose.

"River's level" is the level that the river *has*. It is a possession of the river. As if, the level to which the river reaches is something that *belongs* to the river. Of these two, I prefer "level of the river," but it's hard to say why. Like, take a similar issue:

"The height of the building impressed travellers approaching the city from the south."

"The building's height impressed travellers approaching the city from the south."

I have no issue with either of these. So I also don't have much issue with "river's level."