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30 Sep 2010, 06:18
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A
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
95%
(hard)
Question Stats:
29% (01:21) correct
71%
(01:23)
wrong
based on 1815
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San Franciscans of the 1890s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful municipal had made this boast a reality .
A. yet within twenty years a powerful municipal had made this boast a reality
B. yet within twenty years a powerful municipal made this boast a reality
C. yet a powerful municipal within twenty years will make this boast a reality
D. yet this boast had become a reality within twenty years because of a powerful will municipally
E. yet within twenty years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality
A. yet within twenty years a powerful municipal had made this boast a reality
B. yet within twenty years a powerful municipal made this boast a reality
C. yet a powerful municipal within twenty years will make this boast a reality
D. yet this boast had become a reality within twenty years because of a powerful will municipally
E. yet within twenty years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality
30 Sep 2010, 13:17
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My understanding of this unusual grammatical construction is that we can read 'within twenty years' as 'before twenty years passed'. Thus, focusing only on the second clause after the comma, the earliest event is the boast becoming reality. Since the boast becomes reality before that time finishes passing, the perfect tense is appropriate (though not mandatory).
Hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
30 Sep 2010, 14:55
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rafi
Excellent question, rafi. The answer is that I'm not reading carefully enough! The exception that I cited applies to sentences with specified times, which this sentence lacks. Good catch, and thanks for pointing it out.
That being said, the past perfect tense is used to stress that one event happens before another--again, in this case, before the 20 years passes. The 'had been' past perfect is not limited exclusively to cases where it's omission would make the sentence ambiguous. For that reason, the word 'within' in the past will take the past perfect tense. Here's a couple of examples lifted from periodicals:
Quote:
[/quote]If you're not convinced that it's grammatically necessary, then chalk it up to idiomatic language--but the 'had' tense is required here.
Could you answer my second question about antiquity?
