In archaeological terms the university was a latecomer to the town, wh

Question

In archaeological terms the university was a latecomer to the town,  which was already centuries old by the time we first hear of the establishment of  a community of scholars and teachers in the late 12th Century.

A. which was already centuries old by the time we first hear of the establishment of

B. already centuries old by the time we first hear of its establishment of

C. which was centuries old already when we first hear of the establishment of

D. that was already centuries old by the time we first are hearing of the establishing of

E. that was already centuries old by the time we first hear that they had established

Mick1005 · Answer

Close call between A and C. I would go for A. Don't like the construction C.

Shobhit7 · Answer

IMO A

B: possessive pronoun "its" distorts meaning by suggesting that town established a community.

C: modifier 'already' misplaced.

D & E: That clause is an essential modifier and hence cannot follow a comma.

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rahul6019 · Answer

In archaeological terms the university was a latecomer to the town,  which was already centuries old by the time we first hear of the establishment of  a community of scholars and teachers in the late 12th Century.

A. which was already centuries old by the time we first hear of the establishment of -  Correct

B. already centuries old by the time we first hear of its establishment of -  its is ambiguous here

C. which was centuries old already when we first hear of the establishment of -  already is misplaced

D. that was already centuries old by the time we first are hearing of the establishing of -  that cannot be non-essential modifier

E. that was already centuries old by the time we first hear that they had established -  same as D

AdityaHongunti · Answer

daagh  , is the tense structure right in A??  VeritasPrepBrian   DmitryFarber   GMATNinja 
by the time needs past perfect 
univeristy had been centuries old by the time we hear. Here " was" is used . please explain

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Yeah, really good question and a pretty important one. Keep this in mind:

The past perfect tense is never* required.  (I'll put that * there because I teach Critical Reasoning for a living and get nervous saying "never" but man I can't think of an occasion where you cannot use simple past and instead must use past perfect.)

Past perfect exists to put additional emphasis on the fact that one even happened prior to another. But using simple past isn't wrong in those situations. Consider:

Past Perfect: Before he even considered getting an MBA, John had already earned graduate degrees in law and public policy.

Simple Past: Before earning his MBA, John earned graduate degrees in law and public policy.

In the past perfect, "even considered," "already," and "had" all serve to put extra emphasis on the fact that John was a total academic badass even before thinking about getting an MBA. Past perfect here is about signaling how much he accomplished pre-MBA. In the simple past, it's more a factual list of John's accomplishments. The past perfect version is probably what you'd expect a speaker introducing him for a presentation to give (let's really showcase how impressive his background is) while the simple past might be what you'd find in a more sterile biography on a consulting company's website.

Note: it's the same sequence of events with one clearly happening before the other, but both simple and past perfect can work.

So for the more general question of "hey shouldn't this be past perfect?" just keep in mind that there's no sequence of events for which simple past is dead wrong and past perfect is required.

VerbalBot · Answer

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In archaeological terms the university was a latecomer to the town, wh

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In archaeological terms the university was a latecomer to the town, wh

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