He couldn't conceive of a time when he would have no job.

'Did not' signifies an already happened action. He could not conceive of a [hypothetical time ]. Since the action of him not having a job is hypothetical, 'would' is correct here. 'Would' is used in hypothetical situations. E.g I thought he would come to the party.
(Actually he did not come to the party. )
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Hi Alex,



First, let's be clear about the meaning: "he couldn't conceive of" means "he could not possibly imagine" (not "he couldn't get the feeling").

Then, as you identified, the sentence is describing the past. When we talk about the future from the perspective of the past, we use the conditional ("would"). This is important to know for the GMAT, as it does come up.

For example, a CEO stands in front of the media and says "We will expand into China in 2019."
Then, a week later, the media report: "At last week's press conference, the CEO announced that the company would be expanding into China in 2019."
There is nothing hypothetical in this sentence. We use "would" to capture that the CEO was talking about the future in the past.

Does this help clear it up?
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I do know these rules, but I dont udnerstand how this is applied to this sentence.

Hi,

I understand that we rewrite "will" into "would" for the future actions stated in the past. However, i still have confusion about this question and let me try to explain my confusion once again.

- He couldn't conceive of a time when he would have no job"

Meaning: He could not have the feeling of time which means he didnt feel that time is running away or something of that sort when he would have no job?!

Let's go back to that past to rewrite that sentence in present tense. "He cannot conceive of a time when he will have no job" -> I cannot understand this at all. How he cannot get the feeling of time when he is talking about some time in the future when he will be jobless. We dont know if he has the job NOW?! What if when he has a job, he does have the feeling of time. He only cannot get the feeling of time when he is jobless. These two actions must be at the same time period. How are they happening in different points of time?

I am so confused.

Hi alexlearning17

OK, I understand your confusion.

Here, "time" means more like "situation" or "circumstance". It does not mean time like clock time. I might tell you a story and say, "One time, we were in the park ..." Or a parent might say to her child, "There will come a time when you will not need me anymore."

In the present tense, this sentence would mean something like this: He does not think he will ever be unemployed. It would be really strange for him to be unemployed ... so strange that he cannot even imagine the idea of not having a job.
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Ahhhhhhhh. This makes sense! When I read the sentence, I kept imaging there was a comma between "time" and "when",and that made my understanding of the sentence deviate from the intented meaning.

Thank you very much!

This is one of the instances when a wrong understanding of the setence ruin your timing on the exam completely ... Happens often to non-native English speakers who also don't use English on daily basis.