Long before Thomas Edison made a long-lasting and commercially viable

[quote="mikemcgarry"]Long before Thomas Edison made a long-lasting and commercially viable incandescent lightbulb, the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1802 created the first prototype of the lightbulb, that was too bright and burned out too quickly.

(A) in 1802 created the first prototype of the lightbulb, that was

(B) made the first prototype in 1802, but it was

(C) had created in 1802 the first prototype of the lightbulb, although this would be

(D) had created the 1802 prototype, the first one, which had been

(E) in 1802 had made the first prototype, but this would be

Answer is B

If And/but/although are used in a sentence, than pronouns refers to the first noun or the main subject.

thanks mikemcgarry for explanation.
I will keep things in my mind

Hi Mike. I have a doubt regarding choice B.
In this choice "it" refers to prototype. Prototype being too bright. In choice A that clearly refers to lightbulb and it makes perfect sense that bulb was too bright and used to burn out quickly. Can you please help me understand how A is wrong.

Hi sandysilva,

I can jump in for Mike here!

As he mentioned, A is wrong because the word "that" denotes a restrictive modifier. You can read about the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers here: That vs. Which on the GMAT. Since "that" is restrictive, it cannot be preceded by a comma. If we put a comma before a restrictive modifier, it essentially cuts off the sentence, and disconnects the modifier. So here,

Long before Thomas Edison made a long-lasting and commercially viable incandescent lightbulb, the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1802 created the first prototype of the lightbulb, that was too bright and burned out too quickly.

The "that was too bright and burned out too quickly" is disconnected, by the comma, from "lightbulb", which means that it is not modifying "lightbulb" correctly. If the sentence instead used "which", which is non-restrictive, instead of "that", then that part of the sentence would be correct (there are still other stylistic issues with A, as Mike mentioned before). Again, please refer to that article I linked to for a detailed description of this

Hope that helps!
-Carolyn

Hi MagooshExpert

I do get the logic on usage of That vs Which. But isn't the use of "it" ambiguous in option B. Because it can refer to the prototype.

Hi rahul16singh28!

"It" here isn't actually ambiguous, because "prototype", "prototype of the lightbulb" and "lightbulb" are all the same object. There aren't multiple objects being talked about. So "it" here is referring to this one object (whether we interpret that as "prototype" or "lightbulb"), which means there is no ambiguity.

Does that make sense? If not, let me know
-Carolyn

Hi MagooshExpert,

Why is 'had' answer choice wrong. Can you explain. I ended up selecting 'D' because of 'had'.

Thanks,

ucb2k7

Hi ucb2k7!

Happy to help

Because of "long before" in the sentence, the order of the events is already clear. We only need to use the past perfect ("had") when the order of the events is not completely explicit. So the "had" here is redundant, since we already know that the second action happened before the first.

This extra "had" is not strictly grammatically incorrect, just redundant. But that, combined with the fact that “the 1802 prototype, the first one” is extremely awkward and unclear, means that D is not the best choice.

Does that make sense? If not, let me know!
-Carolyn

just want to make sure that we aren't using past perfect (had verb-ed) because time sequencing is already given and in that case we can use simple past for both events?

My answer is B.

Yes, that's correct!

The time sequence is already clear, so we can just use the simple past for both events. The correct answer is B

-Carolyn

1. Long before- a time marker, so we don't need past perfect tense.
2. British chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1802_ Now who would like to add year in his/her name. Completely awkward.

With above two reasons, B is only remaining and correct choice.

I discarded option B as I thought that there was a possibility that "it" might refer to the year 1802.