Even with the proposed budget cuts and new taxes and fees the city's

The primary requirement rule for past perfect tense states that there should be two events one after other happened in the past.
Now look at option D

Here let's see what are those two events separately:
1st event that took place - administration officials predicted two months ago that the gap will be $2.7 billion dollars.
2nd event that took place- administration official announced that they believe gap will be $3.7 billion dollars.

Now if we combined these two statements in order of occurrence.
administration officials announced that they believe the gap will be $3.7 billion, a billion dollars more than they had predicted just two months ago

Use of "had" is correct as per rule of past perfect tense.
I hope it helps

You can say that the gap was predicted TO BE $2.7 billion. But you couldn't say that the gap was predicted $2.7 billion - clearly we need the "to be".

We have something similar in choice (C).

It would be one thing if we had: "...they believe the gap will be $3.7 billion, a billion dollars more than [the gap] was predicted TO BE just two months ago."
Instead, we have "...they believe the gap will be $3.7 billion, a billion dollars more than [the gap] was predicted just two months ago."

It makes sense to compare the gap to what the gap was predicted TO BE. But it does not make sense to compare the gap to what the gap was PREDICTED.

I hope that helps a bit!

Even with the proposed budget cuts and new taxes and fees, the city's projected deficit for the next budget year is getting worse: administration officials announced that they believe the gap will be $3.7 billion, a billion dollars over what it was predicted just two months ago.

A) over what it was predicted

B) over the prediction from

C) more than it was predicted

D) more than they had predicted

E) more than they predicted it

A. We need more than to convey the intended meaning correctly and succinctly. Moreover the pronoun does not have an antecedent.
B. Same as A
C. The it is problematic.
D. Correct. Though I believe had predicted is unnecessary as the timeline is already clear.
E. It is incorrect
B is correct

_____________________________________________________

Even with the proposed budget cuts and new taxes and fees, the city's projected deficit for the next budget year is getting worse: administration officials announced that they believe the gap will be $3.7 billion, a billion dollars over what it was predicted just two months ago.

A) over what it was predicted

B) over the prediction from

C) more than it was predicted

D) more than they had predicted

E) more than they predicted it

Let's start with meaning.
The gap will be 3.7 billion, which is a billion dollars more than was predicted just two months ago.
We need to make sure our comparison is correct.

Moving onto grammar, the pronoun "it" is both unclear and unnecessary. What is it trying to refer to?

So, the only one with the proper comparison and pronoun is D. Note that B, although tempting, is not correct: it's not a billion dollars over the prediction, as the prediction itself isn't some amount of money (it's just words).

GMATNinja or any experts

In option C, "it" is correctly referring to the only singular "gap".
Why option C is wrong ?

I choose D but still confused why not C ?

Can experts guide me how the usage of past perfect "had predicted" justified in D?

Since prediction happened at a specific time in the past, should simple past "predicted" not be used?

Are we supposed to say "I predicted this two months back" or "I had predicted this two months back"?

Thanks. I believe that we cannot use past perfect in case of "any two events" in the past. So, from my understanding, we cannot say that "American revolution had started in 1765 and US became Independent in 1776". Since American revolution started at a specific time (1765), we have to say that "American revolution started in 1765 and US became Independent in 1776".

DmitryFarber, can you please comment.

No Shishir,
You are misinterpreting again.

If you are using these sentences independently then simple past is ok.
But if you want to show that these events happened one after other then past perfect should be used. hence correct form in past perfect will be
"Although US became independent in 1766,US revolution had begun in 1775.

Some other examples:
1)Shishir had gone out when I arrived at office.
2)He was very tired because he hadn't slept well.
Look at example 1

first event- shishir went out- independent event
second event- I arrived at office.-independent event
Try to break the second example it will help definitely help.
Then apply this concept in question

Hope it helps

I don't understand why the usage of they to refer to administrative officials is correct.

How do we know for sure that it was the administrative officials who predicted the gap two months ago. VeritasKarishma egmat

Also would the following construction be correct?

...a billion dollars more than what was predicted just two months ago

akshaygundeti, good questions.

1) "they" is not ambiguous here. Ask yourself: what else would "they" refer to? In the previous clause, "they" refers to officials, and again in the final clause. In general, it is good to confirm that the same pronoun correctly refers to the same antecedent.

Here's an official example of one that is incorrect -- "it" refers to 2 different things (https://gmatclub.com/forum/heavy-commit ... 10136.html):
"Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear." (note: "them" correctly refers to "signs" -- there are no other plural nouns that "them" could refer to).

2) Yes, using "what" instead of "they" is also acceptable, but it's better to use past perfect tense here, since it happened before the other past tense verb "announced". Also, in general it's better to use the active voice and specify who is doing the action.

For example:
Joe decided to play.
The decision to play was made.

Also note that past tense communication verbs, which also include the word "that", are a common pattern that creates a past perfect tense:
The company reported that they had made mistakes.
Joe claimed that he had closed the door.

GMATCoachBen appreciate the explanation. It does answer the 2nd part. But I'm still unclear on how we are sure that it was the administrative officials who predicted the gap two months ago. It could very well be someone else who predicted it back then but its the officials who now believe that the gap would be much more. Isn't there an inherent assumption we are making here when we say they had predicted?

akshaygundeti, sure, it's theoretically possible that someone else predicted it, but that is not our job to determine -- we only have to determine whether the given meaning is clear and logical. The basic concept behind pronoun ambiguity is we want to avoid ambiguity between two different nouns within our sentence. Here, there is only one plural noun that "they" could refer to, "officials". Furthermore, the first "they" clearly refers to "officials", and by default the 2nd "they" will also refer to the same antecedent, "officials".

Unfortunately, the Pronoun Ambiguity rules are not black and white, and the amount of acceptable ambiguity can vary. As much-revered GMATNinja said on a recent problem, "generally, you want to be careful about relying solely on pronoun ambiguity as a reason to eliminate answer choices". (https://gmatclub.com/forum/scientists-c ... ml#p241818) He has a great video on Pronouns with more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhN_KU1bSKU

I've also attached an excellent overview of Pronoun Ambiguity from Manhattan GMAT's "All the Verbal" book, which is a great resource. (https://amzn.to/2AxIb7m)

Hi... still unsure why D) doesn't refer back to the what it was previously predicted by using "what".

Should answer choice D) read
"more than what they had predicted" instead of
"more than they had predicted"
Thanks!

We don't know who predicted and it is not our job to question it. We have to look for the option that is grammatically correct. Option (D) is grammatically correct. The other four options are not correct. The correct option tells us that they had predicted it two months ago - then so be it.

GMATNinja could you please elaborate more why "to be" should be added? Is it always the case with predicted?

Looking at the question someone had predicted two months back about the gap increasing to x billion dollars.

So we need past perfect because the first action is in simple past... the proposed budget cuts and the city's projected deficit are indicators.

So two months back is an earlier event hence past perfect...HAD + past tense verb.

A- What does it refer to?
B- Wrong construction
C- Same as A
D- Correct choice...use of past perfect
E- Same as A.

Hope that helps.