Once they had seen the report from the medical examiner, the investigators did not doubt whether the body recovered from the river was the man who had attempted to escape from the state prison.

(A) did not doubt whether the body recovered from the river was

(B) have no doubt whether the body recovered from the river was

(C) had not doubted that the body recovered from the river was

(D) have no doubt whether the body recovered from the river was that of

(E) had no doubt that the body recovered from the river was that of

A has 2 problems

1) DID NOT DOUBT should be HAD NO DOUBTS
because if you notice the start of the sentence,it says "ONCE THEY BALH BLAH BLAH" which means when they started off with the experiment,tthey had some doubts whch got resolved when they BLAH BLAH BLAH...this EFFECT is not represented as well by DID NOT DOUBT as by HAD NO DOUBTS

2) "BODY RECOVERED WAS" THE MAN
new found BODY is being compared with MAN when actually
new found BODY should be compared with THE BODY OF THE MAN..

During the question I was trying to match PAST PERFECT to SIMPLE PAST. I picked A originally since "did not doubt" sounded like SIMPLE PAST tense to me. I couldn't understand why E was correct. This was bothering me all morning until I realized that I incorrectly thought "had no doubt" was in PAST PERFECT tense. In fact it is in SIMPLE PAST tense. Everytime I see "had" my mind thinks past perfect.

Hi Nitin, "had" is simple past tense when it is not followed by a verb. For past perfect, "had" should be followed by a verb. For example, "had doubted" would be past perfect tense.

Regards,
Meghna
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Am still doubting why D cannot be the answer, How can had doubt be in simple past tense. Had doubt must be past perfect and Doubted is simple past. Im sorry if i sound moron but am really not understanding what am i missing out here ??

There is no need to make one's life miserable by going into the aspect of past perfect tense and past tense first. After all, you cannot compare a dead body to a man. It should be only in the possessive case of a man. Therefore A, B, and C can be given the boot.

Between D and E, basic intuition can tell us that use of the present tense 'have' in choice D has no licit place in this context.
Therefore, E is the ultimate.
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If we can follow the sequence of this events clearly in this question, it will help us arrive at the right answer choice quickly.

Let’s see here: After the investigators saw the report, they had no doubt about the identity of the body.

Now, the sentence says,
Once they had seen the report…. The investigators … (past tense) no doubt … was the man…

When we scan the options, we see that there are only two options with ‘had’ at the beginning. We can eliminate the other options right away.

Option D is OUT because ‘have’ signifies present tense and we need past tense here. Substitute the option back into the question to see the tense jump.

Option B is OUT of the running because it incorrectly compares ‘the body’ to ‘the man’. What it means is a ‘the body was that of …’

Therefore, Option E is the best choice.

Hope this helps!
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