The team of research scientists will not know

Mahmud
You cannot escape shift of tense in conditional clauses. After all, only if the condition is fulfilled, we are going to get the result, which will be always one tense later than the condition.
The past tense here is about a specific experiment that is over now but awaiting further interpretation.

The team of research scientists will not know whether the procedure for reversing damage to individual genes was successful if the scientists do not get access to the advanced optical technology at the university.

here the structure (y if x) is as follows:
The team of research scientists will not know [u]whether the procedure for reversing damage to individual genes was successful = Y ( future tense)
IF
the scientists do not get access to the advanced optical technology at the university = X (simple present)
structure is Correct "Y if X".


(A) whether the procedure for reversing damage to individual genes was successful if - Correct.

(B) whether the procedure of gene damage reversal was successful depending whether or not

(C) if the procedure to reverse damage to individual genes was successful if

(D) if the gene damage reversal procedure was successful, and if

(E) if the procedure of reversing damage to individual genes was successful whether

Use "whether" to show that TWO alternatives are possible
Use "if" when you have a conditional sentence, i.e., if - then.

The team of research scientists will not know whether the procedure for reversing damage to individual genes was successful if the scientists do not get access to the advanced optical technology at the university.

As per the meaning:
The team will not know whether the procedure was successful or NOT successful (TWO alternatives - successful or NOT successful)
And bigger picture is: "The team will not know X if not Y". This is a conditional statement. No TWO alternatives are present.


This eliminates choices C,D and E.

(A) whether the procedure for reversing damage to individual genes was successful if
Answer choice A is correct as per our meaning

(B) whether the procedure of gene damage reversal was successful depending whether or not - You don't use "whether or not", because "whether" already includes TWO conditions in itself. Correct style is "whether" only.

......genes was successful......
I am confused whether the usage of 'was' is correct.

Thanks Sir,

But the follwing construction seems to be awkward to me.

Future---past---present

will not know ...... was successful ......do not get access

Would you please share something about this?

Official Explanation

Split 1A: the first whether/if split. The scientists want to know, "was the procedure successful?" That is the content of what they want to know, the answer to that yes/no question. For the content of a yes/no question, the answer to which someone wants to know, we use "know whether." At the beginning of the underlined section, we need "whether," not "if." Only (A) & (B) have this correct.

Split 1B: the second whether/if split. Will the scientist get access to the optical technology? This is a condition. If they get this access, then they will know what they want to know. For a genuine if-then condition, we always use "if", not "whether," and that's what we should have at the end of the underlined section. Choices (A) & (C) & (D) get this correct.

Split 2: the phrasings of "procedure for reversing", "procedure to reverse," and "procedure of reversing" are all correct, all legitimate idioms. The phrasing "gene damage reversal procedure," in (D), is awkward.

The only possible answer is (A).

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