Although the first pulsar, or rapidly spinning collapsed star, to be

my friends do not follow this rule ....in OG some correct answer choice THAT you can find with using had and before/after at same time

Let us assume option E was provided as below:
E. The discovery of the first sighted pulsar, or rapidly spinning collapsed star, was not announced until February, 1968, while it was observed in the summer of 1967 by graduate student Jocelyn Bell.

Then can we say E is the correct answer choice for this question?

Hi GMATNinja and daagh

I have a question about tenses here. I went through all the posts, but I'm still a little confused. Why are we not using past perfect tense "had not been announced"?

There are three events here:
(1) The sighting in 1967
(2) The announcement
(3) The time marker February 1968

If that's the case, shouldn't the announcement be in past perfect relative to February 1968?

I'm saying this with reference to the following OG examples:

(1) Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern Texas.

(2) Around 1900, fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay area landed more than seventeen million pounds of shad in a single year, but by 1920, over-fishing and the proliferation of milldams and culverts that blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less than four million pounds.

The only difference I can see is that in the examples (1) and (2) above, the events we have denoted in the past perfect tense ("had migrated" and "had reduced") happened before the time third time marker ("35 years" and "1920") and are now completed.

Whereas "the announcement" did not happen until February 1968, i.e. it either happened sometime in February 1968, or happened after February 1968. Which means we won't need past perfect tense. Does this make sense?

I'm not very convinced though. Request your help. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Aditya


I am not quite clear about your point. I presume that you are willing to concede D as the choice but not with conviction about the use of simple past tenses for both the events. One must use past perfect for the first part because it is an earlier event and past perfect for the later announcement because it comes with a time reference as in the other OG questions cited by you

Yet again you state " Which means we won't need past perfect tense" . Both stances are contradictory. Aren't they? Please advise whether you vote for past perfect or simple past in the given case.

Hi daagh. Thank you for the prompt reply.

Yes, you understood my question perfectly. I'm trying to figure out why past perfect tense "had announced" is wrong? I understand that among the answer choices, the ones that use past perfect tense are incorrect for other reasons. But if they weren't, would we prefer past perfect tense over simple past tense? This question came to me because I instantly connected the structure of the sentence to the OG examples I cited. They seem very similar to me.

As for the last paragraph and saying "Which means we won't need past perfect tense" - this was me trying to come up with a reason why we can't use past perfect tense. I'm not very confident of my explanation, hence thought of writing this post.

Hope this clarifies things. Looking forward to your reply. Thank you again.

Adithya

I am afraid that you are mistaking a convention for a rule. That you have to use a past perfect for an earlier event is a style. However, it does not mean that you should use a past perfect everyday e even if the sequence of chronology is made clear otherwise by the mention of an earlier year or a word such as before. One can challenge that this is not the inkling of GMAT, because if it were so, D could not have been marked as the OA. In other words, this is the way of saying that what we assume as a rule is not a rule.
That is the reason choice D does not use the past perfect for the discovery.
Why D does not use past perfect for the second point? Because it is the later event
Your OG choices:
1. "Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendents, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as Southern Texas."
Why this choice is using the past perfect for the later event?
According to Ron, this is just a reported speech of a normal present tense sentence such as follows.
"Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendents, popularly known as killer bees, have migrated as far north as Southern Texas"
When you convert it into a past tense, the 'have migrated' present perfect becomes 'had migrated'. That is all to this question.

(2) Around 1900, anglers in the Chesapeake Bay area landed more than seventeen million pounds of shad in a single year, but by 1920, over-fishing and the proliferation of milldams and culverts that blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less than four million pounds.

The same reasoning as in the honeybees' case. If you wrote that sentence in 1920, you would have said '' by 1920, over-fishing and the proliferation of milldams and culverts that blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams have reduced landings to less than four million pounds-" Now convert it into a sentence as of now, and you would write 'had reduced' instead of have reduced.

HTH

Dear AjiteshArun GMATGuruNY MartyTargetTestPrep VeritasPrepHailey,

Why is HAD NOT BEEN ANNOUNCED in choice C. wrong?

I think past perfect correctly describes an event earlier than an event in the past "February 1968"

Hi varotkorn!

This one's a bit tricky, but we'll want to keep in mind that we use the past perfect to address something that happened in the past at some point before another past tense event / action. Here, saying "the discovery had not been announced before February, 1968" should place that event in the past, at some point before another past tense event - but the announcement was the later of the two events in our sentence's timeline!

So, we could have used the past perfect in some construction to address the earlier of the two events... but certainly not the latter of them.

I'd also point out that the modifier in (C) definitely makes this one means for elimination as well. "Although observed by graduate student Jocelyn Bell in the summer of 1967" should refer to the pulsar itself, but here it seems to refer to the discovery... and that doesn't make much sense!

I hope this helps!

Dear GMATGuruNY GMATRockstar VeritasPrepHailey,

My question comes from:



According to choice C: ...the discovery of the first sighted pulsar had not been announced BEFORE February, 1968.

Choice C. is similar to the examples above where "February, 1968" is the later event and "HAD NOT BEEN ANNOUNCED" is the earlier event.

Why is HAD NOT BEEN ANNOUNCED in choice C. wrong, whereas OAs above are right?

C: Although observed in the summer of 1967, the discovery had not been announced.
Here, the past perfect action in red seems to be completed before the later past event in blue, implying that the ANNOUNCEMENT did not occur before the OBSERVATION.
This meaning is so obvious as to be nonsensical.
Clearly, an event cannot be announced before it is observed.
Eliminate C.

Dear GMATGuruNY,

(C) Although observed by graduate student Jocelyn Bell in the summer of 1967, the discovery of the first sighted pulsar, or rapidly spinning collapsed star, had not been announced before February, 1968.

However, if the intended sequence is between the red and blue above, will it make sense?
In other words, is this sentence grammatical correct: BEFORE Feb 1968, the discovery HAD NOT BEEN ANNOUNCED?

I'm just confused whether I have the right past perfect concept.

The purpose of the past perfect is to express a past action that is completed before another past action or event and that somehow AFFECTS that later action or event.

OA: The personal income tax did not become permanent in the United States until the First World War; before that time the federal government had depended on tariffs as its main source of revenue.
Here, the past perfect action in green is completed before the First World War and affects the time of the war in that -- during the war -- the government NO LONGER DEPENDED ON TARIFFS.
Since the green action has a clear effect on a later past event -- the First World War -- the usage of the past perfect is justified.

C: The discovery of the pulsar had not been announced before February, 1968.
Here, it is unclear how the lack of an announcement affected February. 1968.
Thus, the usage of the past perfect seems unwarranted.

Note:
It is very common to use the perfect tenses to refer to KNOWLEDGE.

OA: The first trenches have yielded strong evidence that centrally administered societies arose simultaneously with celebrated city-states.
Here, have yielded (present perfect) affects our present knowledge of centrally administered societies.
OA: By 1999, astronomers had discovered 17 nearby stars.
Here, had discovered (past perfect) affected our knowledge of astronomy in 1999.

Hi varotkorn

Not so long ago I did small research on the use of the Past Perfect tense (PP) in sentences with “before”. It might be interesting for you too. Your thoughts are welcome as well.

There is quite interesting and simple rationale behind such use. You may have read that “before” already clarifies the sequence of events, and therefore PP is redundant. Well, not always so. There are two things to consider first:
I. whether two events are compatible or mutually exclusive;
II. whether the earlier event is non-continuous;

Case 1: Compatible events – events that may happen together.

Could you take a look at the two examples from GMATGuruNY below (here) and tell the difference in meaning?

1. Before John became a painter, he studied music.
2. Before John became a painter, he HAD studied music.

The first merely states which action started first, but doesn’t clarify whether John stopped studying music before becoming a painter. He may have very well continued to study music even after becoming a painter. i.e, he could do both. The second, in contrast, tells that John STOPPED studying music before becoming a painter. Another set of examples:

3. Before John became a painter, he left his town.
4. Before John became a painter, he HAD left his town.

The third sentence is different from the previous two in that - it already clarifies that “the action of leaving” was already over before John became a painter. In other words, both events such as “became” and “left” could NOT happen together. The reason behind is that “leave” is a non-continuous action while “study” is not. I mean, the event “leave” happens at one point in time - we either leave or stay. When we leave, we leave, so there is no need for PP to show that we left the town. On the contrary, the event “study” may continue for any period – days, weeks, or years - so we need PP to show that the study is over. Therefore, PP in sentence 4 is pointless.

In short: non-continuous verbs usually don't need PP in such cases, whereas the reverse is true for continuous ones. By the way, I made up the terms “non-continuous” and “continuous” just to deliver my point. I mean, you already know the difference between “hear” and “listen”, or between “see” and “watch”, right? The same story.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Case 2: Mutually exclusive events – events that can NOT happen together, or the start of the one denotes the end of the second.

Try to analyze the difference in the meaning:

5. Before John became the president of the country, he served as a state senator.
6. Before John became the president of the country, he HAD served as a state senator.
7. Before John became the president of the country, he owned a multibillion dollar company.
8. Before John became the president of the country, he HAD owned a multibillion dollar company.

“Becoming the president” and “serving as a state senator” are mutually exclusive events. John could NOT do both. Logically, when he became the president, he already stopped serving as a state senator. Hence, PP in sentence 6 is pointless. Note that when events are mutually exclusive, whether the verb is non-continuous usually doesn’t matter. i.e., the verb “serve” is continuous, but PP is needless anyway.

However, John could “become the president” and still continue to “own a multibillion dollar company”, as in sentence 7. These events are compatible, so we need PP if we wish to show that he stopped owning such company, as in sentence 8.

In short: first we need to check whether the events are mutually exclusive. If yes, then no need for PP. If no, then further check whether verbs are non-continuous. If yes, then no need for PP. If no, then use or omit PP, depending on the meaning we want to convey.

__________________________________________________________________________________________


Now, you yourself can analyze why PP is valid or invalid in the following official problems you asked about:

1. The personal income tax did not become permanent in the United States until the First World War; before that time the federal government had depended on tariffs as its main source of revenue. (why PP is correct?)

2. The discovery of the first sighted pulsar, or rapidly spinning collapsed star, had not been announced before February, 1968. (why PP is wrong?)


The spoiler is in the following post.

Spoiler:

1. In the first sentence, “before that time” refers to the period in which PIT became permanent (PIT = personal income tax). It became permanent during First World War. So, the sentence simply means: “before PIT became permanent, the US had depended on tariffs as its main source”.

As we see, the two events are compatible. i.e., the fact that “PIT became the main source of revenue” does NOT necessarily mean that tariffs stopped being the main source too. There could be two main sources if each gave the same percent of the revenue.

Next, “depend” is NOT non-continuous. The US could depend for any period. So, PP is necessary to show that the US stopped depending on tariffs as its main source.


2. In the second sentence either, there is nothing mutually exclusive. No event denotes the end of the second. For example, “before Pupa became a butterfly, it was a caterpillar”. Becoming a butterfly denotes the end of being a caterpillar. Nothing similar here. So, we may need PP. Let’s check further.

Next, “announce” IS a non-continuous action. It is similar to “see”, not to ”watch”. Hence, as in sentence 3 in my previous post, the PP is pointless.


I hope I made some sense. You can bring other similar problems so that we can discuss them.

Dear GMATGuruNY AnthonyRitz VeritasPrepBrian VeritasPrepHailey DmitryFarber MartyTargetTestPrep AjiteshArun GMATNinja IanStewart,

If choice D. were:
The first pulsar, or rapidly spinning collapsed star, to be sighted was HAD BEEN observed in the summer of 1967 by graduate student Jocelyn Bell, but the discovery was not announced until February, 1968.

Would the above still be correct?

I switched the earlier past event from simple past to past perfect.
Because observation PRECEDES discovery, past perfect seems fine to me.

Hi there, VeritasKarishma egmat

I couldn’t understand the sequencing of events in option D :

I am able to eliminate the rest of the provided options on the basis of following reasons :

1) Sequencing of events - ( option A and Option C)

2) Sighted Pulsar( Pulsar is non living so , using “Sighted” would be irrelevant ) — ( Option E)

3) Modifier issue ( Option B)

By this way, I am able to eliminate options A,B,C,E

But the major challenge is : while analysing option D , I couldn’t stop myself from striking it off on the basis of Sequencing of events !


Kindly help

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Hi daagh ,

Thankuuu for the explaination ! I wanted to understand whether the sequences mentioned in option D are correct ?

For both the years , 1967 and 1968 , - was is mentioned

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