Reporting that one of its many problems had been the recent extended

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that one of the retailer's many problems had been the recent and extended sales slump in women's apparel.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses + Pronouns + Modifiers

• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• The present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.
• The simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature.

A: Correct. This answer choice correctly refers to the singular noun "retailer" with the singular pronoun "it". Further, Option A uses the phrase "recent extended sales slump"; the use of the adjective "recent" modifies the noun "sales slump", conveying the intended meaning - that the sales slump in women's apparel took place in the recent past and extended over a long period of time. Additionally, Option A correctly uses the past perfect tense verb "had been" to refer to the earlier of two actions that took place in the past -- the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel being one of the retailer's many problems and the retailer saying that it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "recently extended sales slump"; the use of the adverb "recently" modifies the adjective "extended", incorrectly implying that the sales slump in women's apparel was extended by someone in the recent past; the intended meaning is that the sales slump in women's apparel took place in the recent past and extended over a long period of time. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "has been" to refer to the earlier of two actions that took place in the past -- the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel being one of the retailer's many problems and the retailer saying that it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores; please remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "recently extended sales slump"; the use of the adverb "recently" modifies the adjective "extended", incorrectly implying that the sales slump in women's apparel was extended by someone in the recent past; the intended meaning is that the sales slump in women's apparel took place in the recent past and extended over a long period of time. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb "is" to refer to the earlier of two actions that took place in the past -- the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel being one of the retailer's many problems and the retailer saying that it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores; please remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature.

D: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun "seven-store retailer" with the plural pronoun "their"; please note that in this context, "seven-store" is an adjective modifying "retailer" to convey that the singular retailer consists of seven stores. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb "is" to refer to the earlier of two actions that took place in the past -- the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel being one of the retailer's many problems and the retailer saying that it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores; please remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature.

E: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun "seven-store retailer" with the plural pronoun "their"; please note that in this context, "seven-store" is an adjective modifying "retailer" to convey that the singular retailer consists of seven stores.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of Present Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

108. Reporting that one of its many problems had been the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel, the seven-store retailer said it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores.
(A) its many problems had been the recent This sounds right(B) its many problems has been the recentlythis is wrong because, the exteded sales alump in women's aparralle acts like a noun clause. We cannot modify a noun or a noun clause with an adverb as in this choice. Secondly the choice has been does not sound right to me because there was a sale slump before the problem and therefore, this choice does not properly establish the sequence of events events.C) its many problems is the recently This must be eliminated
(D) their many problems is the recent this must be eliminated
(E) their many problems had been the recent. this must be eliminated

* Recent is the adjective form; adjective always modify nouns and hence recent modifies extended sale slump (noun form)
* Recently is an adverb form; adverbs modify verbs, adjective or another adverb and hence recently modifies only extended (which is an adjective for sales slump)

Besides that, I think the question is of using "had been" vs "is". With the verb "said" (past tense), "had been" is appropriate since sales slump happened before the retailer said and it happened in the past. So perfect tense is used rather than simple present.

Hope this helps.

Please give Kudos if you like the explanation

i have a clear understanding why had been tense should be used. But really i dont understand is there any problem why recently(adverb) cant modify the verb extended sales slump? or it can modify????

Hi there,

Let's take an example and explain:

Currently the date is Dec 20.
Picture that there is a discount offer going on in a store for Christmas.
Now this discount offer is extended beyond Dec 25 till 31 Dec.
So this becomes extended discount offer.

Now imagine if similar thing happened during Thanksgiving weekend (Nov 22) as well.
The discount offer was initially supposed to be only for 3 days.
But it was extended for 3 more days.
So that was also an extended discount offer.

So if today is Dec 20, then there is one extended discount offer going on right now through Dec 31. This extended sale is recent
But the one that happened in the end of November is not recent anymore.

Hopefully this helps explain why recent and extended are mutually exclusive. One is not dependent on the other. They are both individual adjectives of sales slump.

However, in choice B, you actually make "recently" modify extended, implying that the sales slump was recently extended.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

Hii Umesh.
First understand the meaning of the sentence in question.
Two things are taking place here.
i) The retailer is reporting that he has been facing problems because of the recent extended sales slump.
ii) The retailer said that he would start a three month liquidation sales.
Now, since you to strictly mention the sequence of events, henceforth you have to use had been.
Without this, it would seem that retailer would start a three month liquidation sales and will then report. That will distort the meaning as well as be an illogical choice too.

Now to your second question:
Recent extended sales slump- It implies that among several extended sales slump, you are more concerned with the recent one. Recent is an adjective and describes the noun-extended sales slump.
Recently extended sales slump-It implies that among several sales slumps, you are more concerned with the recently extend one. Recently is an adverb here and modifies only "extended".

These are the problems with B and C.

IMO A,

1) since the seven retailer is singular, therefore usage of plural their is incorrect. hence option d and e are out.
2) usage of past perfect tense is correct as reporting of problems happened earlier and the retailer's decision of liquidation happened later.

I am still unable to understand the use of past perfect tense!

@honchos
Obviously you are thinking of the present perfect or simple present tense. If you see deeply, both of them don’t work; a present tense or present perfect is used for something that is still persisting. In this case, the recent slump was extended but the issue is a thing of past now. So to describe it with a present tense or present perfect will be unsuitable. Of course in B, the ‘recently’ is an yet another pin prick

decision of liquidation happened later: this decision is happening in present not in past.

For past perfect two comparing even should happen in past time Line.

In our case one event is in past and one in present. Thats my point Boss.

The recent extended sales slump was in the past; the retailer’s saying was in the past; that the company would start a three-month liquidation was in the modal past; all of these later events are described in past tense, and are not underlined. So we have to take them per se.

In option 'B',...recently extended sales slump..",verb 'recently' modifies the adjective 'extended' and 'extended' modifies 'sales slump' right?

What is the difference between recent extended sales slump and recently extended sales slump?

Please help me out on this distinction.

Thanks.

First of all it all depends on the context and meaning of the sentence.

"Recently extended sales" is of the form Adverb - Adjective - Noun.
"Recent extended sales" is of the form Adjective - Adjective - Noun.

We have to understand the meaning here.

If we go by the Second statement then recent modifies sales slump. Though technically "Recent sales slump" is correct but here in this case "Recently" needs to modify "Extended".

There is really no other distinguishing parameter here other than understanding the meaning.

In GMAT, Adjective - Adjective - Noun is correct and Adverb - Adjective - Noun is also correct. But which to use when depends on the context.

Also, other things to look at in the above sentence.

Present + Future -------------------- is correct.
Past + Conditional ---------------------is correct.

Only above conditions are possible.
Present + Conditional---------------------------- is wrong.
Past + Future ------------------------------------ is wrong.

Use of their vs it/its

Here we have to look at the non - underlined part.

The non underlined part " the seven-store retailer said it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores"
uses it /its, hence we have to use it in the underlined part. This is the basic rule of pronoun agreement.

Pronoun must refer to the same subject. Here subject is "Seven Store Retailer"
Pronoun must agree in number. It is singular and their is plural. both cant refer to same antecedent "Seven Store Retailer".

Hence, correct OA is A.

Correct me if i'm wrong.

But the reason why i chose A for this Question :

The singular pronoun "its" correctly refers to singular subject "Retailer". "their" is plural , hence we can eliminate D,E
"Recently " is an adverb and cannot modify noun "slump" . Eliminate B, C.

Now my question is would the following sent be correct :
Reporting that one of its many problems "has" been the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel, the seven-store retailer said it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores.

is it necessary to have the "had been" structure in the following sentence.?

The verb "had been" is within a statement ("said") that happened in the past. This implies that the verb "had been" occurred prior to another verb in the past "said". Hence past perfect is mandatory.

For example:

1. I say that I was happy, but I will be sad.... correct
2. I said that I had been happy, but I would be sad.. correct
3. I said that I was happy, but I will be sad... wrong

Whenever a verb is within a statement in past, we need to take the verb one step back, i.e. simple past would become past perfect, future (will) would become conditional tense (would).

Saw the below clear response by ManhattanGMAT Staff. Thought I should repost it. Because the answers here weren't very clear for me on why it should be "had" and not "has". See original thread here: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... -t763.html

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The perfect tenses, though used infrequently on the GMAT, often induce this type of confusion. Remember, the present perfect is used when an event began at some time in the past and continues to the present moment, while the past perfect indicates a completed past event that happened before a second completed past event. In the cited example, the verb "said" in the non-underlined section of the sentence is a past tense verb. In order to indicate that the sales slump occurred prior to this past announcement, the past perfect tense is necessary.

A second approach would have been to focus on the recent/recently split. It is nonsensical that a retailer would INTENTIONALLY extend a sales slump. However, this is exactly what is suggested by the adverb "recently," which modifies the adjective "extended." The sentence should instead include the adjective "recent," which correctly describes the slump. Thus, answer choices B and C are eliminated. From there, the its/their pronoun split is relatively straightforward. Since the subject of the sentence is the singular "retailer," the singular pronoun "its" is correct.

The credited response is A.

-dan

Responding to a pm:



"recent" is modifying "extended sales slump", that is, a kind of sales slump. Basically, it is modifying "slump" i.e. a noun. So you will use an adjective.

Look at the skeleton of the sentence:

Reporting that ..., the seven-store retailer said ...

The main verb is "said" which is in past tense. Hence, the extended sales slump had been a problem before they reported it. So the use of past perfect is appropriate here. You will use "had".