Meteorologists announced that the severe weather warning would remain

I guess, the answer choice D is right only because of the word 'perceptiBLE'. The explaination for 'had' doesnt look good as 'after' is mentioned

Easy to work out this question:

the non underline portion at the latter part of the sentence is " it made landfall earlier that day". This gives a hint that it relates to " Hurricane" . Now lets look the choices and apply POE


A) the severe weather warning would remain in effect because no perceptive reduction in the strength of the hurricane

kEEP FOR NOW

B) warning of severe weather would continue because there had not been any perceptive increase in the hurricane’s strength that

The sentence talks about hurricane's strength and not hurricane. Now It cannot refer to hurricane's strength and hence eliminate this choice.

C) severe weather would continue to be warned about because not any perceptible reduction in the hurricane’s strength had

Same as B

D) the severe weather warning would remain in effect because no perceptible reduction in the strength of the hurricane had

kEEP FOR NOW

E) hurricanes would continue to be warned because no single perceptible reduction in the strength of the hurricane

Keep for now.


Out of A,D,E

E makes no sense since the meaning changes hence eliminate

out of A and D , D makes more sense since perceptible reduction is the correct word.

This looks like a poor quality question.
A and D are closest to being correct, but both have mistakes.
But A used "perceptive"(wrong) while D using "past perfect" for an event that occured after a simple past event.(wrong)

thank you Daagh for refuting these kind of questions, they make SC more miserable.