Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime ministers not comi

Question

Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime ministers not coming  from a landed family.

(A) Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime ministers not coming

(B) Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime ministers who have not come

(C) Until Disraeli in 1868, there were no prime ministers in Great Britain who have not come

(D) It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister—Disraeli—who did not come

(E) It was only in 1868 and Disraeli that Great Britain had one of its prime ministers not coming

egmat · Accepted Answer

Hello akshayk , Your analysis is correct. You have correctly pointed out the error related to the usage of the word until . I am just elaborating the same a bit. The word until is used in the context of time. It cannot be used with the name of a person (Disraeli) as we see in this sentence. For instance, observe the following two sentences: a. Until Abdul Kalam, India hadn’t become self-sufficient in the development of ballistic missiles. b. Until Abdul Kalam was made the leader of the Missile Development Program, India hadn’t become self-sufficient in the development of ballistic missiles. Sentence (a) uses until incorrectly, while sentence (b) correctly uses until to describe a point of time. So yes, Choices A, B, and C are incorrect for the usage of until . Hope this helps. :-)

Thanks. Shraddha

daagh · Answer

The point of this warped official question is to expound the use of double negatives. The core theme is that all PMs prior to Disraeli, who became the PM in 1868, came from landed gentry; Disraeli was the first one whose family did not own lands. 
History aside, it is the dubious introductory remarks ‘Until 1868 from Disraeli’ that unseat A, B and C; it is not clear what the term ‘from’ stands for. It also may lead to an absurd meaning that all the PMs that GB had were from Disraeli. 
We have to fall back on D and E now, but E is outright loser because of the murky structure

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem: 
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses

• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past. 
• The present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

A:  This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "Until 1868 and Disraeli"; the use of "until" to refer to a person - "Disraeli" - rather than a point in time leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb + ing") phrase "not coming" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

B:  This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "Until 1868 and Disraeli"; the use of "until" to refer to a person - "Disraeli" - rather than a point in time leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have not come" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past, and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

C:  This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "Until Disraeli in 1868"; the use of "until" to refer to a person - "Disraeli" - rather than a point in time leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have not come" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past, and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

D:   Correct.  This answer choice uses the phrase "It was not until 1868" and modifies "a prime minister" with "Disraeli", conveying the intended meaning - that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option D correctly uses the simple past tense verb "did not come" to refer to an action that concluded in the past.

E:  This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "It was only in 1868 and Disraeli"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that in 1868, for the first time, Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family, and this prime minister was Disraeli. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb + ing" - "coming" in this case) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATNTtugB9fM

To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNmT9obXukI

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

SeregaP · Answer

A: double negation
B: double negation + tense issue
C: tense issue
D: fine 
E: wrong meaning (although technically correct) in parallelism (in 1868 and (in) Disraeli)

Skywalker18 · Answer

Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime minister not coming  from a landed family.

A. Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime minister not coming - until is used in the context of time ;The phrase …no prime minister not coming from… is confusing, as it doesn’t clearly convey the intended meaning that before Disraeli, all prime ministers of Great Britain came from landed families.
B. Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain has had not prime minister who has not come -Use of past perfect tense verb had had is incorrect because the sentence talks about an event that took place till a certain point in time in the past.
C. Until Disraeli in 1868, Great Britain had no prime minister who has not come - same idiom error as in A and B ; 
D. It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister-Disraeli-who did not come - Correct
E. It was only 1868 and Disraeli that Great Britain has one of its prime minister not coming. - Illogical meaning - Disraeli in this choice appears to be a place and not a person.

Answer D

akshayk · Answer

The answer is a straight D. Herein lies the problem : When I'm trying to explain the errors to other members here, I'm unable to articulate them and that points me to having a gap in my understanding.

In A and B for e.g., The usage of until seems to be incorrect. Whatever follows until denotes a point in time, but Disraeli doesn't.
C has the relation pronoun modifier issue i.e. who seems to be modifying Great Britain.
E again is combining a year and Disraeli and that makes no sense.

SO we're left with D as the answer, but since my articulation of the errors is glossy at best, can an expert help with dissecting the sentences?

sevenplusplus · Answer

Could someone clarify if my following understanding is correct:
D. It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister - Disraeli - who did not come

"had" here is "simple past" of has and is not "past perfect"?
Disraeli became PM "after" 1868 (not before it) and therefore past perfect is not correct here.

pra1785 · Answer

Can someone explain why C is wrong?

abhimahna · Answer

Hi sevenplusplus , Yes, your understanding is correct. Here 'had' is not used as a past perfect tense. Hi pra1785 , Try to understand the meaning of the sentence. It says Disraeli was the first prime minister who didn't come from from a landed family and this happened for the first time after 1868. Let's talk about C. Note that Until is used to denote the point of time. For example: Until 2018, I will not be able to join Harvard Business School.

But C says Until some person. This is incorrect usage of until. Hence, C is incorrect. Does that make sense?

AnubhavK · Answer

'D' is correct - This version correctly uses the idiomatic construction not until . . . that, and it correctly uses past tense throughout.

Smitc007 · Answer

I do have a question regarding option "C".
Explanations of OG suggested that the present- perfect tense (have not come) is inappropriate after the past tense (were) in this context. 
Whether it is grammatically correct to use multiple tenses in a single sentence or the OG explanation is wrong ?

Please have a look on the below given Example
" I have heard that Mona left Manchester this morning, and has already arrived in London, where she will be for the next three weeks. "

Here, we have present perfect tense, simple past tense and simple future tense all in the same sentence, but they all make sense together to create a logical sequence of events.

Need some guidance from the Experts  GMATNinja   sayantanc2k

AjiteshArun · Answer

There is nothing  inherently  wrong in using multiple tenses in a sentence.

However, that doesn't mean that we can use any tense we want in any sentence. This sentence talks about Disraeli, and the Prime Ministers  before  him. Given that the sentence connects Disraeli to 1868, we can safely say that all the other PMs must have come to power even earlier than that. Option C drops the present perfect  have not come  into this situation, and that's why it is incorrect in  this  case.

shauryahanda · Answer

In the option D ; 
is who not modifying Disraeli and not the prime minister

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  shauryahanda ,

That's right:  who  does not refer to  Disraeli . Ignore the portion in between dashes.
1.  It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister who did not come from a landed family.

Otherwise, we'd be looking at something like this:
2.  It was not until 1868 that Great Britain had a prime minister (Disraeli, who did not come from a landed family).

(2) means that Great Britain did not have a prime minister at all until Disraeli, but this is not the intended meaning of the sentence.

Soham68 · Answer

In option C, I saw few mentioned Modifier Error since who is modifying UK instead of PMs. Is it correct?

From my point of view, Who is modifying PMs because "IN UK" acts as a modifier for PMs. Can anyone clarify this point?

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  Soham68 ,  who  can only modify  persons . So,  who  cannot modify  UK .

There is no rule that  who  cannot refer to something in modifier. For example, following is a correct sentence:

Peter is a friend of Jack, who is a famous author .

Here,  who  is referring to  Jack  (it does not matter that  of Jack  is a modifier of  friend ).

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  this aspect of "relative pronouns" . Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

LamboWalker · Answer

Hi experts,

Upon my first time reading this, I automatically assumed Disraeli to be an event (like the holocaust for example) which occurred in the past because of its placement with 1868 in the original sentence. How else could one have eliminated A and choose D, which makes Disraeli a person all of a sudden?

GMATNinja   egmat   EMPOWERgmatVerbal   VeritasKarishma

EDIT: Am I right to assume that if for example Disraeli was an event from the past, then the correct sentence structure would have been 'Until 1868 and  THE  Disraeli, Great Britain....'

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Great question, LamboWalker ! This question is meant to be confusing, but if we look for context clues, we can determine that Disraeli is a person. An event cannot become a Prime Minister - but a person can. The inclusion of the double negatives and the word "until" are there to throw off students to think that Disraeli is an event or place. If we look at your hypothetical question, you would be correct - using "until" to refer to both a year and an event is okay, though we wouldn't word it quite like you had it: Until 1900 and the Olympics, women were not allowed to compete in any Olympic events. --> Not great. Until the Olympics in 1900, women were not allowed to compete in any Olympic events. --> Much better! We hope that helps!

Feel free to tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!

Moumita9 · Answer

Hi E-gmat,

Could you please let me know the function of 'that' in option D. Is it acting as a connector or as a modifier?
I felt 'that' is not correct in option D and should have been 'when'.
'It was not until 1868 when Great Britain.....'
Please help me clear my doubt

Moumita

Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime ministers not comi

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Until 1868 and Disraeli, Great Britain had no prime ministers not comi

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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