grimbergen wrote:
Ergenekon wrote:
Nice question. Chose D. Past perfect is wrong because we do not have past tense in the sentence.
Could anyone please check if my logic about why the past perfect tense doesn't work here?
At first glance, I thought that the past perfect tense(to suggest that the unusually large contributions to its accounts
had been derived from government kickbacks) was a better option because we're talking about something that happened in the past, before the investigation started. But we are not simply describing what they used to do so in the past, but it is the "evidence" we are talking about; it is the evidence to suggest something(to suggest that the unusually large contributions to its accounts
are derived from government kickbacks). So, you could even say that this is like a historical fact, which technically happened in the past, but the influence holds true up to now. So, there is no need to use past perfect tense, which indicates something happened in the past and it ended in the past.
If I am wrong, please correct me or elaborate more on this issue.
Dear
grimbergen,
I'm happy to respond.
Remember, first of all, that while the past perfect is used to set one event in the past of another past event, we do not use the past perfect when other indicators of time sequence would make it redundant. For example, if the sentence says, "
he did X before he did Y," the adverb "
before" already indicates the sequence, so the use of the past perfect would be redundant. See:
Past Perfect on GMAT Sentence CorrectionHere, though, the action is
not in the past. It's also a little more than the influence of a past historical event. The verb "
to derive [from]" means "
to obtain something [from]" or "
to have one's source [from]." Consider this sentence:
The Fourteenth Amendment is derived from the popular sentiment of the Reconstruction period.
This verb is a present action. It's true that the "
Reconstruction period" was over 100 years ago, in the historical past. Nevertheless, the relationship of having one's origin from someplace is a present-moment relationship. Right now, today, the Fourteenth Amendment has its origin from that past event. Much in the same way, the "
unusually large contributions to its accounts" mentioned in this question have their origin from someplace, and this relationship of having their origin exists in the present time.
The GMAT SC is all about meaning, and the meaning of this particular verb can create a unique link between past and present. It can refer to something in the past even though it is discussing a present relationship.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
Wow, Mike! Thank you so much for the precise and detailed explanation! I did not consider the meaning as much when it came to the tense issue. As you said, now I certainly realize that how much it weighs in the GMAT. For the first part you explained regarding how to avoid redundancy, I've got it thanks to your wonderful
lessons.