V08-09

Laughable Explanation and solution.

If i understand from the test makers point of view, there are many moderators who are making the test and providing solution because of inconsistency in the solution. Let us address the problem in this question. Until is mentioned so ideally we can use both had been and was but no the official solution says to use had been, ok fine.

But this reminds me of another question and explanation in a gmatclub test itself.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/v04-184871.html

Before the subprime crisis weakened the housing market, America, with its state of the art infrastructure and with multiple job opportunities for expats, had been one of the most popular destinations for foreign investment.

A. had been
B. has been
C. had been being
D. was being
E. was

Official solution is hilarious to eliminate A

A.Do not go by the size of this question. This is actually a very tricky question. (B), (C), (D) are clearly incorrect because they are using the incorrect tense. Most of the students are confused between the choices (A) and (E) and interestingly many don’t even consider that E) could be correct. E) is in fact the correct choice.
We should use past perfect verb when we want to express an event that happened before another event in the past. However, if the meaning of the sentence clearly marks such a sequence then the use of past perfect would be considered redundant (or in other words less preferred). Such a sentence would be grammatically correct, but if you have an answer choice without the past perfect then that would be the better one.

E.This choice is the better of the two choices, A and E as it removes the redundancy by using only simple past tense.


I kept that in mind in my first test, saw it here marked B because of the word until but GMATCLUB has to more to offer - confusion in particular and comedy in general. Just kidding.

Special mention souvik101990
Ironically the most helpful reply comes from you and you have taken two different stands in both the posts.

On a lighter note, kudos and shoutout to GMATCLUB moderators, you guys have been doing an amazing job and what level of help you are providing is close to infinity.

There are errors here and there but it is fine, the content and effort is more important.

Bunuel bb Please look into the solution. Cheers!