Michelangelo, it is believed, had made his sculpture of David using an

Hi rheam25

Use of "and" is wrong in option B due to following reason.
"and" is acting as separator here i.e. specify two independent events. But if look meaning wise,
1.An eight-inch plaster model is believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David
2.An eight-inch plaster model is recently discovered after it was lost for nearly 300 years.

Two separate events doesn't make sense in the context of sentence.

Another reason to eliminate "B" is pronoun ambiguity.
it can refer to "An eight-inch plaster model" or "sculpture of David".

Let me know if you have further doubts.

Can you please elaborate why B is wrong?

An eight inch plaster model is believed.... And discovered ....

Which means Eight inch plaster model is believed..... And Eight inch plaster model is discovered

Posted from my mobile device

Hi SsdfHarsha123,

This is the sentence that option B leads to:
An eight-inch plaster model is believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David and recently discovered after it was lost for nearly 300 years.

One way to take B out is to focus on the and:
An eight-inch plaster model is believed to have been (a) used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David and (b) recently discovered after it was lost for nearly 300 years.

So the sentence ends up saying that the model is believed to have been recently discovered, which cannot be the intended meaning.

Hey AndrewN,

It's me again. I think this one just fried my brain as I'm not a native speaker but kindly share your thoughts on the below:

"An eight-inch plaster model believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David has been discovered after having been"

Believed to have been used by Michelangelo > the infinitive form "to have been used" has nothing to do with the passive present perfect (have been + participle + by). Instead what this is saying is that at the present it is believed that the action of this statue being by Mike used has happened in the past.

Has been discovered after having been lost > This one is a little bit more nuanced. I know that "having been lost" is some sort of time marker indicating that this state of being lost happened before the state of being discovered. I just have two questions: This is a passive past participle correct? and if so is it like the past perfect in that there maybe an illogical meaning because it would be lost at one point > then no longer lost since the state of being lost is completed in the past> then discovered. how can it be discovered if it is no longer lost? illogical

Hello, sislam04. I have to run to a lesson soon, so I must be brief and stick strictly to your questions.

having been

This is what is known as the perfect participle—after having been lost indicates that, for whatever reason, something was lost at a point in time that has not been determined. And yes, this verb tense is preferred to a past perfect after [it] had been lost, which seems to call attention to the point in time at which the item was lost. It is best to look at all five answer choices to see what you can definitely eliminate first, and then dig into more nuanced issues in a second pass.

I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask me about the question.

- Andrew

MartyTargetTestPrep

Dear Marty,
could you elucidate in detail answer C ?

C) An eight-inch plaster model believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David has been discovered after having been


An eight-inch plaster model believed - how does plaster model can believe; is it doer of action?

Furthermore, I presumed that we employ Passive Voice + Past Participle to illustrate Cause & Effect.
For instance, Having been scared by police, he was afraid to commit a crime.

Thereby, concerning answer C, "plaster model having been lost, and therefore was recently discovered" does it make sense?

Regarding the answer A, is phrase "after being lost" justified? Does it consist benefited verb?

Thank you in advance.

In this case "believed" is a past participle. So, "believed to have been used by Michelangelo ..." modifies "model."

Thus, it is a "model believed (by someone) to have been used."

So, we can see that the model did not believe. The model is believed (by people) to have been used by Michelangelo.


The use of a present participial phrase does not always indicate cause and effect. In this case, all we have is a sequence of events: first "having been lost" and then "has been discovered."

Having been lost, it was discovered.

We could perhaps argue that there is a cause and effect, because something that has been lost can therefore be discovered, but the phrase does not necessarily work that way. Consider the following example.

Having eaten dinner, Jeremiah decided to go for a walk.

No cause and effect - just a sequence of events.


That phrase is fine. "Discovered after being lost" makes sense.

Hello GMATNinja, can you please explain the usage of to have been in option B & C.

Hi, What is wrong in the original sentence?

Hi Prachi, few issues with the original sentence:

i) The usage of past perfect tense (had made) is not optimal here. Past perfect is used only in a very specific scenario. Since this sentence just talks about something that happened in the past, a simple past tense would have been more appropriate.

ii) The usage of being is again, not correct here. Being is correct in a very specific scenario in GMAT.

iii) There is a significant meaning issue with A, since A can be interpreted as: Michelangelo had made his sculpture of (David using an eight-inch plaster model). In other words, David was using an eight-inch plaster model, and Michelangelo made his sculpture of David in the position of David using an eight-inch plaster model. Clearly the intent is to actually convey that Michelangelo used an eight-inch plaster model, to make his sculpture of David.

You can watch our video on Past Perfect.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses the usage of "being", its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

This passive construction is admittedly a bit confusing, so let's try to work our way up to it:

• "The model is used by Michelangelo." - This sentence uses the passive voice: the subject ("model") receives the action.
• "The model is believed to be used by Michelangelo." - This is similar to the first one, except here we aren't sure whether the model is used by Michelangelo -- we only believe or think that it was.

Not too bad, right? But things get a bit more confusing once we change the timing:

• "The model was used by Michelangelo." - Here we know that the model was used by Michelangelo at some point in the past.
• "The model is believed to have been used by Michelangelo." - In the second example above, we were talking about something that we believe that Michelangelo currently does. But now we are talking about something that we think was done at some uncertain time frame in the past. We use "believed to have been" instead of "believed to be" in this case. This is basically what we have in (B).
• "The model believed to have been used by Michelangelo..." - This is basically what we have in (C). It's the same idea as the last one, except that now "believed..." is an -ed modifier. Again, the only real difference between "believed to be" and "believe to have been" is the timing of Michelangelo's supposed action (using the model).

Luckily, this construction doesn't come up all that much in official questions, and learning the ins and outs of this particular construction is probably not the best use of your time. Don’t overreact to this sort of thing -- when in doubt, look for other decision points.

I hope that helps!

Hi mohitmech1, GMATNinja has already answered your question in great detail.

I would just like to add that the structure to have been (to + have + past participle) is called Perfect Infinitive.

Rule: The perfect infinitive always indicates that its action happened before the action of the main verb of the clause. Hence perfect infinitives can act as present perfect, past perfect, or (in some rare cases) simple past tense.

An official example:

Combining enormous physical strength with higher intelligence, the Neanderthals appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path, but their relatively sudden disappearance during the paleolithic era indicates that an inability to adapt to some environmental change led to their extinction.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses "perfect infinitive”. Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

Hi EducationAisle can you help identify what role "having been" in option C is playing from Verb Tense perspective?

Hi Mayank, having + past participle is (grammatically) called perfect participle.

It is generally used in two forms:

i) Active voice: having + past participle
ii) Passive voice: having + been + past participle

Grammar aside, this kind of a construct generally establishes completed action.

For example:

Having worked hard for GMAT, Peter is confident of scoring well.
- This means that the act of working hard for GMAT is complete and Peter is now confident of scoring well.

Same/similar meaning here (though in passive voice):

Model has been discovered after having been lost for nearly 300 years.
- The act of model getting lost was done (completed) nearly 300 years and now, it has been found.

Hi GMATNinja

Therefore, what is other decision point between B & C ?
I read all posts. But I don't understand why B is incorrect

Hello, Tanchat. I know I am not GMATNinja, but you also sent me a PM with the same question, and you seemed to appreciate my response, so I will reproduce it below for the benefit of the community.

How about we look at a barebones version of (B) to expose its flaws? First, the line as is:


Now, the same sentence without all the extra modifiers:

A model is believed to have been used and discovered after it was...

Now can you see the meaning issue surrounding the parallel elements joined by and? Sure, a model can be believed to have been used by somebody, but was the same model also believed to have been discovered? That would not make sense, but the parallelism suggests such an interpretation.

To follow up on my earlier comment, notice how a simple auxiliary verb could fix the problem:

A model is believed to have been used and was discovered after it was...

Now, it is clear that the model is believed to have been used by somebody and the model was discovered after some time. It is funny how a simple word can change everything, but that is how grammar and parallelism work together sometimes.

I hope that helps clarify the matter.

- Andrew

[quote="generis"]Michelangelo, it is believed, had made his sculpture of David using an eight-inch plaster model that was recently discovered after being lost for nearly 300 years.

A) Michelangelo, it is believed, had made his sculpture of David using an eight-inch plaster model that was recently discovered after being

B) An eight-inch plaster model is believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David and recently discovered after it was

C) An eight-inch plaster model believed to have been used by Michelangelo for his sculpture of David has been discovered after having been

D) It is believed that an eight-inch plaster model that Michelangelo used for his sculpture of David and has recently been discovered after it was

E) It is believed that Michelangelo used an eight-inch plaster model for his sculpture of David, and it was recently discovered after having been



first point is about present perfect.
present perfect is a hard tense. to understand it, we present the concept of time frame. present perfect is used for a time frame which begin in the past and continue until present. so, some time adverbs must go with present perfect but not with simple past. "recently" must go with present perfect because it show the time frame of present perfect. so, simple past+"recently" is wrong.
WE need to review the use of present perfect in grammar books.

second point.
in choice B, the first part is in present tense "is believed and discovered" and the second part is in past tense " after it was". this is wrong
choice D is not a sentence
"it" in choice E is ambiguous.

this test tense problem.