woohoo921 wrote:
KarishmaBThank you for this helpful explanation. I wanted to clarify the explanations as to why Choice E is incorrect with you, as it uses a past perfect verb. The explanations all say that past perfect tense is not true to the original meaning. However, from my understanding for GMAT sentence correction problems, we do not necessarily need to abide to the original meaning... just the answer choice that is the most clear and concise.
I understand why E is incorrect for its use of "as well as". But to clarify, is use the past perfect tense incorrect mainly because the sentence does not clearly tell you that he did work as an independent singer before working on a collaboration? I find this a bit tricky, but perhaps the GMAT would always provide another way to eliminate a choice like this rather than deciding between past perfect tense if I am not 100% when the events occurred based on the information provided.
Thank you for all of your time and help.
There are usually a combination of factors that make one option better than the other.
(C) uses 'both A and B' which is the structure we like. Option (E) uses 'both A as well as B' - not the best structure.
Consider the tenses in options (C) and (E)
While A may be best known for B, he also did C.
While A may be best known for B, he had also done C. - Why are we using past perfect? Is there a sequence of two actions in the past that we need to show? No. We don't know which action happened first, which later or whether both happened at the same time. Are we trying to talk about an action before a point in time? No.
Then past perfect does not make sense. He did B and C in the past during his career. All we are saying is that he is most known for B, but he also did C.
Hence, (C) is better than (E) on two counts.