Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary

Question

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women  having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves .

(A) having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves

(B) who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves

(C) previously considered incapable of discerning truth for himself or herself

(D) of whom it had previously been considered they were incapable of discerning truth for themselves

(E) who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for himself or herself

America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln 
By  Mark A. Noll

Positively, common sense opened up whole realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men (and sometimes women)  who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves .

Why E is a wrong choice in above question?

EducationAisle · Accepted Answer

The sentence says  men and women :  men  is  plural  and so is  women .

Hence,  himself  or  herself , as pronouns, do  not  have any antecedent.

anox · Answer

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women  having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves.

Issues: Modifier

A.   having  been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves
 - Incorrect modifier "-ing"

B.   who  had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for  themselves 
 - Correct modifier "who" to indicate people considered incapable
 
 C.  previously considered incapable of discerning truth for  himself or herself 
 - Missing connector
- himself or herself has no antecedent

D.   of whom it had  previously been  considered they  were incapable of discerning truth for themselves
 - "of whom" creates meaning error
- "considered they" has no connected
- overall this option has poor construction

E.  who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for  himself or herself 
 - himself or herself has no antecedent

Answer:   B

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Verb Forms + Pronouns + Awkwardness/Redundancy

A:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the participle construction "having been...considered" to refer to the earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - ordinary men and women being considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves and literacy opening up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to these people; 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".

B:   Correct.  This answer choice correctly uses the past perfect tense verb "had...been considered" to refer to the earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - ordinary men and women being considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves and literacy opening up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to these people. Further, Option B correctly refers to the plural nouns "men" and "women" with the plural pronoun "themselves". Additionally, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C:  This answer choice incorrectly refers to the plural nouns "men" and "women" with the singular pronouns "himself" and "herself" respectively.

D:  THis answer choice uses the passive voice construction "of whom it had previously been considered they were incapable of discerning truth for themselves", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E:  This answer choice incorrectly refers to the plural nouns "men" and "women" with the singular pronouns "himself" and "herself" respectively.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGxC37OOGU

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Nick90 · Answer

Below is as per i think...

First split is himself or herself vs themselves

Both convey similar meaning.....thus shorter is better .(brevity)

A. Having been (incorrect)
B. Correct 
D. It reference issue

Sent from my Le X507 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

arpitgarg · Answer

"men and women" is plural subject, hence requires plural pronoun, hence themselves is correct.

Nevernevergiveup · Answer

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women  having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves. 
A. having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves
B. who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves
C. previously considered incapable of discerning truth for himself or herself
D. of whom it had previously been considered they were incapable of discerning truth for themselves
E. who had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for himself or herself

having been changes the meaning away from the intended one. So given sentence is incorrect.
men and women is plural so himself or herself is incorrect thereby ruling out C and E.
choice D is wordy and clumsy.

smanujahrc · Answer

hey

after eliminating all choices only B was left hence i chose B

But i have read in manhattan SC book that had is not used if sentence contains some other term referring back to that time or helping in deciding the sequence of events such as  before

here also i think  previously  establishes that point and hence there should be  were instead of had

please correct me where i am going wrong.

thanks

thecriticalreader1 · Answer

I'm not sure about the rule you're referring to in the Manhattan SC book, but here's an overview of the past perfect:

When a sentence discusses two completed actions, the past perfect (had + verb) can be used to refer to the action that occurred  first .

In some instances, either the simple past (preterit) or the past perfect can acceptably be used. In case of the latter, the past perfect merely serves to emphasize that one action occurred before the other. The sentence you are asking about falls into this category.

Simple Past: Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women who  were  previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves.

Past Perfect: Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women who  had previously been  considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves.

In the first version, the simple past emphasizes that both actions took place in the past.

In the second version, the past perfect emphasizes that one action took place before the other -- that ordinary men and women were considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves  before  literacy became commonplace.

If anything, the word "previously" reinforces the acceptability of the past perfect here because it emphasizes the sequence of events.

In other instances, the past perfect is required, and the simple past  cannot  be used.

For example, when dealing with hypothetical ("if") clauses and result clauses, the tenses follow a very strict pattern. If the main clause contains the past conditional (would have + past participle), the "if" clause must contain the past perfect.

Correct: Investors' concerns would have grown significantly if the market  had continued  to decline.

Incorrect: Investors' concerns would have grown significantly if the market  continued  to decline.

In this case, an adverb of time (e.g. "before" or "previously) would not normally appear in the same clause as the past perfect. That might be the rule you're thinking of.

DmitryFarber · Answer

smanujahrc , our book doesn't say that you can't use past perfect when other indicators are present. It's just that in some such cases, past perfect isn't necessary. We could probably get away without using past perfect here--the context and the word "previously" make the order of events clear--but there's nothing stopping us from using it, either.

Soumanti Roy · Answer

please let me know why other options are incorrect?
B. usage of "had" is correct in it?
why C is not correct?

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Soumanti Roy, indeed the structure in option B ( had been considered ) is called a  past perfect  tense. It is most appropriate here because  two  events happened in the  past :

i) Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women

ii) These ordinary men and women had previously been considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves

When two events happened in the past,  past perfect  tense is often used to establish a  chronological  sequence (time sequence) between the two events: The event that is expressed in past perfect happened  earlier  and the events that is expressed in simple past, happened  later .

In C the, entire sentence is in  simple past . As I discussed above, past perfect is preferable in such scenarios.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  Past perfect tense , its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section

dahui911 · Answer

I thought B was ambiguous. How do I know whether "who" modifies "men and women" or just "women"?

egmat · Answer

Hello dahui911 , I am not sure if you still have this doubt. Here is the explanation nonetheless.

The original sentence says that literacy opened up the realm of knowledge to ordinary men and women. All these men and women were considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves. Hence logically, who in the correct answer choice B clearly refers to both men and women . Grammatically, the noun modifier who modifies the preceding noun phrase men and women . Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

daagh · Answer

For those who say that we must definitely not use a past perfect when there is already a before or earlier, so some such deeper past indicator, I am curious to know whether such a usage has been rejected in an official question?

Yashneeil · Answer

In Option A
Why is the Verb-ing modifier starting with ???having been ....??? used wrongly here?
As per my understanding the, it is correctly placed right after the noun it is modifying without being separated by a comma. Hence structurally sounds correct.

Bhavyam · Answer

daagh , could you please explain why A is wrong?

Since having been is not preceded with a comma, it should refer to nearest noun 'men and women'

It would be great if you can explain the correct way to use 'having been'

daagh · Answer

Bhavyam

I agree with you. 'Having been' does modify men and women. They were the people previously considered incapable … But that is not the issue. 'Having been' refers to something that happened in the past and that has ceased to exist at the time of writing about the issue, whereas, illiterate people's incapability of discerning truth is a universal factor.

However, there are places where one can use the phrase contextually in specific cases as below.

Having been the CEO of his company, Steve understands his company's problems fully.

Having been a resident of Singapore for fifty years, I know every nook and corner of the city thoroughly although I am not living there now.

Sam64 · Answer

Hi all, I'd really appreciate an expert's opinion on this:

Isn't the 'who' in option b ambiguous as rather than referring to both men and women, the statement could be referring to all men and, women who had previously been considered incapable...

Should 'who', much like 'which', only refer to the immediately preceding noun?

Thank you so much

GMATNinja 
 daagh 
 egmat

prakhar992 · Answer

The modifier "who had previously considered" means the object is doing the work, but here in this sentence men and women do not consider themselves incapable. "whom" must be used in place of who. 
Another confusion: had+previously. As per my knowledge, it is redundant. Please explain.

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary

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