I would like to share a very important construction which I learnt from RonPurewal's Post. Below is analogy which he presented here
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... t8269.html* if i'm looking at my table right now, i might say
there
does not seem to be a knife in this setting.
* if i'm looking at a picture of a table setting from the past, i might say
there
does not seem to have been a knife in this setting.
note:
- "does not seem" is in the present tense (since this is in my view - i'm an observer in the present)
- "to have bothered" shifts the focus to the time at which the table was set (a previous timeframe).
* if i'm talking about the situation in the picture - but from the narrative standpoint of an observer at that time - i'd say
there
did not seem to be a knife in this setting.
- note that this is the same as the first example, but shifted into the past tense (since the observation was made in the past this time).
i can't shift the second sentence in the past - there did not seem to have been..., unless a past observer is observing a situation even farther in the past.
same goes for (c) in the problem at the beginning of this thread.