By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine a

Question

By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized  that the success of its state building projects depended on the welfare of its people.

A. By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized

B. Until the mid-1700s, when it had begun a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized

C. By the mid-1700s the French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, when it fully realized

D. The French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague by the mid-1700s, fully realizing

E. When the French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, it fully realized by the mid-1700s

polpanumas · Answer

IMO A

If you draw the logic timeline of the events and the time marker of the sentence "By(Until) mid-1700" - French government have to realize sth first before begin to start sth

Thus A is the only choice show this timeline

Note: functions of verb are to index are 1) action and 2)timeline of that action

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darn · Answer

could an expert please let me know what is wrong with option D ?

soumya170293 · Answer

Would anyone please explain how to eliminate option D ?

For the Option A , I could not find the proper referent of ' it' .

Thanks in advance.

daagh · Answer

By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized that the success of its state building projects depended on the welfare of its people.

A. By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized
B. Until the mid-1700s, when it had begun a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized
C. By the mid-1700s, the French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, when it fully realized
D. The French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague by the mid-1700s, fully realizing
E. When the French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, it fully realized by the mid-1700s
Why D is wrong: 
Ask a simple question what the phrase, 'by the mid-1700s' is modifying. As per the original, it is modifying the French Govt's starting of a concerted effort. However, D alters this intent by the placement of the said phrase next 'to prevent the famine and plague'. Now it means that the Govt. vowed to prevent the said maladies by the mid of the 1700s. This is a case of wrong word order leading to misplaced modification.

Temurkhon · Answer

I'm not a SC expert, however, will try to explain.

Idea of a sentence is that by some date, French government realized importance
of some action and as a result of this realization effort took place.

So we should put date first and provide construction that shows result of activity in the past. 
Only past perfect fits for such purpose

A is a best one

thangvietnam · Answer

this is tense problem. we have 3 point of time/actions inhere. mid 1700, realize, and depend
by mid-1700 shows that we need an action happen before this point so had realized is used. this is easy.

the harder point is to explain the logic of had realize and depended. is had realized happen before depended. no. 
had realized happen before mid 1700. end of story. had done is use to show a sequence and this two events is enough.
what about depended. 
depended is not related to had realized. it is simply an past action which at the time of speaking-this time is in the past- is exist indefinitely. depend exist before and after realized and its existence , from context of sentence , is in past. so , depend should be in simple past.

i can give you an example similar.

yesterday, i realized that gmat is not hard as pesons think. 
is not hard is an action exist indefinitely before and after realized. and it is in present. this is why realized in the past and is not hard is in present. 
yesterday, i realized that water boil at 100 degree c.
boil exist indefintely so, it must be in present tense though the main action is in the past. this case rarely happend because normally if the main action is in the past, the supbordinate clause must be in the past tense

yesterday, i told my friends that i would retake gmat.

only 3 action/point of time appear , we already have complex analysis.

thangvietnam · Answer

normally if the time in main clause in in the past, the time in subordinate clause also in the past but it can be in present.

this case is odd because time in subordinate clause seems go before time in main clause.

this problem shows that main clause can be in past perfect and subordinate clause can be in simple past.

Masterscorp · Answer

daagh  Sir

Can you please explain why A is preferable over C?

The only thing that I consider a reason so far is that C slightly changes the meaning. A tells us that the French government already had fully realized the mentioned situation when the government started its effort. In contrast to that, C tells us that the efforts started at the same time as the the government realized the situation.

However, I'm not sure about that and hence I'm looking for an explanation.

Amirfunc · Answer

Hello,

Can anyone provide a solid reason to eliminate C.

Thanks

daagh · Answer

Masterscorp

I couldn't agree with you more. 'C' definitely changes the original meaning. That is a solid reason to eliminate C.

Kchaudhary · Answer

Hi  Amirfunc

Let me try

By the mid-1700s ,  when   it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague , the French government  had fully realized  that the success of its state building projects depended on the welfare of its people.

if we put these events on the timeline, we get

Past event 1: the French government had fully realized (use of past perfect is correct)
Past event 2: By the mid-1700, when it began a concerted effort (simple past - correct)

The intended meaning here is that the French govt had fully realized  by mid-1700  before it started a concerted effort to....

C. By the mid-1700s the French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, when it fully realized

Past event 1: By the mid-1700s the French government began a concerted effort
Past event 2: when it fully realized

'C' changes the meaning, here it seems like all events happened at the same time as there is no use of 'past perfect' to show the sequencing of events.

Hope it helps.

dexter12345 · Answer

mikemcgarry   daagh  I see that the answer to the question is A. I was confused to see the first phrase "by the mid..." modifying a pronoun before the noun has been introduced (which is introduced later). I have never seen a construction like this before. Is this common?

VS1412 · Answer

Isn't the it here ambiguous. i thought option C is a better structured answer. Please help me with the elimination

svasan05 · Answer

Hi

Let me try to address your query:

By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized  that the success of its state building projects depended on the welfare of its people.

A. By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized  This is the correct answer. One may argue that "it" could be ambiguous. But logically, it can only refer to the French Government. Secondly, ambiguous antecedent is a very dicey reason to rule out answer options on the GMAT (unless there are other errors as well). Only situation when I would use this reason to rule answer options out is when there is another option which removes this error without introducing any new error. As we will see, there are no such options and hence this is the best answer option.

B. Until the mid-1700s, when it had begun a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, the French government had fully realized  "Until" is incorrect - it represents an end point in time for something to occur, which is not the meaning conveyed by the sentence. Eliminate.

C. By the mid-1700s the French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, when it fully realized  This changes the original meaning of the sentence by implying that the "realization" of the French Government and the "concerted effort..." occurred at the same time ("when it fully realized..."), whereas the sentence intends to state that the "realization" occurred earlier. Eliminate.

D. The French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague by the mid-1700s, fully realizing  This changes the meaning of the sentence by implying that the French government wanted to prevent famine and plague by the mid-1700s whereas, as per the original sentence, it only began the program by that date. Eliminate.

E. When the French government began a concerted effort to prevent famine and plague, it fully realized by the mid-1700s  Same error as (C). Eliminate.

Hope this helps.

By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine a

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By the mid-1700s, when it began a concerted effort to prevent famine a

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