Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddl

The context is in the past, so use of "has"(present perfect) is not correct.

Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew how to use a good story to generate good will.


(A) Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew --> The context is in the past, so use of "has"(present perfect) is not correct

(B) Discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, Lincoln knew --> same as A

(C) Lincoln, discovering the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned in young manhood before him, knew --> "in young manhood" should modify Lincoln (misplaced modifier)

(D) In young manhood Lincoln discovered the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him: --> correct

(E) Lincoln, discovered in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him, knew --> two main verbs w/o any conjunction

(A) Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew - present and past used together; Incorrect.

(B) Discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, Lincoln knew - present and past used together; Incorrect.

(C) Lincoln, discovering the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned in young manhood before him, knew - Lincoln (and not Yankee peddler) discovered the secret in young manhood

(D) In young manhood Lincoln discovered the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him:
- Correct.

(E) Lincoln, discovered in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him, knew - seems as if Lincoln was discovered in young manhood. Incorrect.

generis
If we take the correct option and replace it in the sentence, the sentence will look as:

In young manhood Lincoln discovered the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him: how to use a good story to generate good will.

What is the significance of the highlighted phrase, to the whole sentence?

I guess that the word "knew" is missing, but then also the question remains the same.

3 uses of Colon:
To present example.
To give definitions/explanations.
To answer questions.

The highlighted phrase is doing none of these.

Kindly help.

You like a question even more when you get it right! Right?

My approach:
1) Read the sentence and understood that there are two events happening in the past, so I instinctively started looking for 'had'
2) Looking through the answer choices


>> cannot find the 'had', wrong tenses, eliminated


>> cannot find the 'had', wrong tenses, eliminated


>> Alas! my beloved 'had', but the sentence seems to convey that the 'Yankee peddle learned in young manhood'. That is not what sentence wants to convey. The sentence clearly wants to convey that 'Lincoln had learned in young manhood'.



>> This sentence conveys the meaning very clearly. I really like this but as taught by GMATNinja, I did not fall in love with this option, kept it alive and moved forward.


>> My first thought as soon as I read this was to compare the option with (D) and realise that (D) was much easier to understand. (I solely eliminated basis this but now I think I have better reason for elimination).
>> 'Discovered....' modifies Lincoln, that's fine. But, 'the secret that' is modifies young manhood. That is clearly wrong!

Confidently marked option (D) and moved to the next question

'Has' is wrong in the sentence. Tenses

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Sometimes, POE can be best strategy.

Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew how to use a good story to generate good will.


(A) Lincoln, discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, knew- Past perfect as one incident had already occurred in the past

(B) Discovering in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler has learned before him, Lincoln knew- Same as (A)

(C) Lincoln, discovering the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned in young manhood before him, knew- this seems he still is discovering the secret.

(D) In young manhood Lincoln discovered the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him: best alternative

(E) Lincoln, discovered in young manhood the secret that the Yankee peddler had learned before him, knew- Placement of Lincoln is much far in the sent me.

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