Never before had the e-business industry faced as many financial losse

Question

Never before had the e-business industry  faced as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as they had  in the late 1990s.

a.faced as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as they had

b.had to face as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as it has to

c.faced the financial losses and employee cutbacks that they had faced

d.had to face as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as

e.faced as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as it faced

The OA is E. But I am having trouble understanding why the answer is not D. I think "had had to face" can be correct, and the issue lies in the second part of the sentence in D.. But I do know that you are allowed to omit certain parts of the sentences.. So an expert please explain why D is incorrect?

Thanks!

PKay · Answer

Hi  kwang2311

First- Please do not mention the OA in the question itself. It kicks out the 'kick' in solving the question!You may post your question in a separate post.
Second-Please underline the error. It makes life little easier for all of us.

So,Let's solve this by POE.

Never before had the e-business industry  faced as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as they had  in the late 1990s.

a.faced as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as  they had 
 - They(plural) refers to e-business industry (which is singular).
also, "faced as many blah blah as the had (faced) in the late 1990's"--Change of tense (to perfect past) is not required.

b. had  to face as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as it  has  to
Change of tense-not good.

c.faced the financial losses and employee cutbacks that  they had  faced
Change of tense-not good again
usage of "they"

d. had to face as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as 
as what?? 
incomplete sentence.
"...........had to face as many blah blah as  it did  in 1990's." would be more appropriate.

e.faced as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as it faced 
perfect! 
.......faced as many blah blah as it faced blah blah"
Both simple past tense.

Abhishek009 · Answer

Never before had the e-business industry faced as many financial losses and employee cutbacks as it faced in the late 1990s. Correct answer must be (E) for the highlighted errors in the other options... Similar question to practice : never-before-had-taxpayers-confronted-so-many-changes-at-67712.html

Bunuel · Answer

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

This one is particularly challenging because the phrase Never before had creates a peculiar sentence structure. If you started by focusing on the first verb in the choices—whether it should he faced or had to face—you had to realize that either one could be right depending on the rest of the choice. So, start with the final verb. (B) and (D) are out because the present tense in (B) doesn't make sense and the elimination of the verb in (D) doesn't work any better. As for the remaining choices, you can see by the structure of the sentence that the final verb in each choice parallels the first, that faced is the correct verb for both, but in different tenses. Pay attention to the meaning of the sentence: what happened in the 1990s had never happened before, so the first part of the sentence discusses the period of time before the 1990s. Therefore, the verb tense has to indicate a time before the 1990s, an option not possible if the second verb is had (faced). The second verb has to be in the simple past tense (faced) so that the first one can describe an earlier time (had faced). That leaves (E).

An 800 test takers knows the difference between the perfect tense and past perfect. The perfect tense (has played) describes either a very recent event or one that began in the past and has continued into the present. The past perfect (had played) describes an event both started and completed in the past.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Never before had the e-business industry faced as many financial losse

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Never before had the e-business industry faced as many financial losse

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