The federal rules aimed at protecting human subjects of medical experi

jabhatta2,
We're talking about federal rules aimed at protecting human subjects of medical experiments.
If you were one of those human subjects...
Would you be happy to be warned about potential risks after the experiment has already taken place?
Would you think that the federal rules succeeded in protecting you?
Or does it make more sense that the federal rules require that you be warned before the experiment takes place?
You have to apply reasoning to your analysis. I think before it was conducted applies to both elements here, just based on logic.

Hi jabhatta2,

In your sentence, the launch was before "NASA said". In the original, the launch was after.

avigutman - While I agree from a meaning perspective - the modifier before it was conducted refers to the X and Y marker as well

From a parallelism perspective, the construction then become a bit awkward because the X marker should work with the rest of the clause (without the need of the Y marker)

If you review the X marker without the Y marker -- the construction gets awkward

Option C – X marker alone
The federal rules were established to ensure
that patients are warned before it was conducted

I just have never seen this construction- what is It? The antecedent is in the Y marker

It seems like you CANT drop the Y marker (which is against how parallelism generally works - in parallelism -- both the X marker and Y marker must bode with the rest of the sentence without the need for each other)

That’s why I thought the modifier before it was conducted refers only to the Y marker.

^^ Continuing from above

avigutman

Regardless –
In C- lets say the modifier is paired with the X marker and Y marker BOTH

Given the X marker and Y marker are present tense whereas the modifier before it was conducted is in the past tense (implying perhaps these experiments are NO LONGER conducted) – hence the usage of the present tense in the X marker and Y marker is incorrect

Just curious if you think that’s the way to knock out C

jabhatta2
Avi took his wife and her mother to lunch.
Avi took his wife to lunch.
and
Avi took her mother to lunch.
While it's true that the latter part has a pronoun with no antecedent, this is still acceptable, because the antecedent does exist in the sentence - so you should use it.

Avi took his wife to lunch.
and
Avi took [his wife's] mother to lunch.

The rules were established to ensure that patients are warned about potential risks before [the experiment] was conducted.

jabhatta2
Yes, that's why I knock C out.
The rules were established to ensure that patients are warned about would be warned of potential risks before [the experiment] was conducted.

Avi wanted to ensure that students are taught would be taught the times table before they took the GMAT.

Thanks AjiteshArun - in my sentence - does the "before the weather got worse" also happen BEFORE "NASA said"

I know in your sentence -- both the launch and the "before the weather got worse" happens AFTER "NASA said"

Hi Experts
GMATNinja VeritasKarishma EducationAisle ChrisLele mikemcgarry AjiteshArun egmat sayantanc2k RonPurewal DmitryFarber MagooshExpert other experts

Can you please answer my below query

Is it always the case "When the main verb is in past sentence then whole sentence needs to be in the past tense"

I have seen few exception for this , but I can't recall it. Can you please help me?

Also I was confused between C and E but marked the wrong answer.
Can you please explain little bit more with respect to verb tense error?

Thanks

Hi Vatsal7794,

The tense of the main verb may or may not match the tense of other verbs in the same sentence. This is usually a meaning call. We choose the tense that best supports the intended meaning. Many times, that will mean choosing multiple verbs in the same tense, but there is no rule that we can't switch tenses in a sentence. A simple example of this would be a sentence in which we use the past perfect tense to indicate that something happened before the time indicated by the main verb.

1. The meeting was postponed because the lawyers had rejected the latest draft. ← The main verb here is was postponed (past tense). The verb in the dependent clause, had rejected, is in the past perfect tense.

Thanks AjiteshArun for the respond

But I was asking in a sense that there are some rules that we need to follow for a reported speech.
Exactly I can't remember it. So are those rule important?. If yes then can you please help me with the link where I can read about it.

Thanks Again

Hi Vatsal7794,

Understood. I don't have a go-to resource for this, but I'll try to answer your questions.

1. We usually "shift" into some past tense when the reporting verb is in the past. For example, it's very common to see a present tense verb shift to the simple past, a present perfect verb shift to the past perfect, or a simple past verb shift to the past perfect. However, meaning remains important. For example, we can't say that if the reporting verb is in the past tense, then a will will always shift to a would. Here's an example:

1a. NASA says that it will launch the rocket tomorrow.
1b. NASA said that it would launch the rocket tomorrow.
1c. NASA said that it will launch the rocket tomorrow.

The important point here is that all three are possible when the "launch" hasn't already happened, and as far as I know, there's no preference call here.

2. Here's an example from an official question.

As AjiteshArun has correctly mentioned, in such cases, it might not be a good idea to pick a choice, based upon the tense change.

Tense change is especially an acceptable choice, when general/universal truth is being reported. For example:

Galileo discovered that Jupiter has four massive moons.

Notice that the first clause is in past tense, while the second clause is in present tense, because a universal truth (Jupiter has four massive moons) is being reported.

Tenses can easily shift within a sentence based on what needs to be said (as illustrated by the examples above).

Here, note that we have two elements in parallel

... rules... were established to ensure that
- patients must be warned of potential risks and
- an independent panel would evaluate the experiment before it was conducted.

There are two things A and B that must be ensured. A and B need to be parallel.

'ensure' does not need subjunctive. If we did use a subjunctive verb, we would need both A and B to be in base verb form.
... rules demanded that patients be warned ... and panel evaluate the exp...

Option (C) uses the base verb form of evaluate but uses "are warned". So this is certainly not correct.

Option (E) correctly uses "would be warned of potential risks and that an independent panel would evaluate ..."
No subjunctive is used as it shouldn't be used with "ensure". Also, "would" shows future in the past. So the rules were established in the past to ensure something in the future.

Hi VeritasKarishma

Two quick questions :

Q1) You mention Ensure is NOT a subjunctive verb. Given Ensure is NOT subjunctive, Y marker in option C , has a S-V error because the Y marker should be an Independent panel EVALUATES right ?

Had Ensure been a subjunctive verb like Demand / Insist / Recommend --- then the Y marker in option C would NOT have a S-V error ?

------------------------------

Q2) Do you think one can eliminate C and D based on sequencing of events in relation to the time stamp ?

option C) Rules were established to ensure THAT patients ARE warned before [the experiment] was conducted.
option D) Rules were established to ensure THAT patients WILL BE warned before [the experiment] was conducted.

Option C uses present tense and option D uses future tense in the yellow highlights.

Does it make sense to use present tense and future tense with a time stamp that is itself in the past tense

I think perhaps not

Hi AjiteshArun - i thought for 1b) the launch has taken place in the past tense compared to Today (Nov 4th 2021) ?

Below is a number line regarding how i see the difference between 1b) and 1c)

Was curious if you agree

Thanks

Thanks for the explanation

If we use would as a past tense and how we can say like it is use to show the future. Can you please explain me the proper use of word would?

"would" shows future in the past. So the rules were established in the past to ensure something in the future

Or take the below sentence

If I were you, I would explain the situation to her immediately

And why we are using "were" in the sentence?

Hello Vatsal7794,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can help resolve your doubts.

When "would" is used as a future tense verb, it is used to refer to information relayed in the past, regarding a future event. For example, "I said that I would be on time." Here "being on time" is a future action, as it has not taken place yet, but the action of conveying this information, "said that", happened in the past. Another usage of "would" in the future tense is referring to hypothetical or uncertain events; “will” is preferred for referring to events that are certain to happen, and “would” is preferred for referring to events that are hypothetical.

Regarding your second question, this sentence uses "were" to refer to the singular pronoun "I", as this sentence is in the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive mood is used to express commands, demands, suggestions, and necessity, to express wishes or hypotheses, and to express information contrary to fact. The given sentence makes use of a standard subjunctive mood construction “wishful trigger ("if" in this sentence) + plural form of verb ("were" in this sentence)”.

To understand the concept of "Subjunctive Mood" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~20 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team