When the CEO summoned a group of senior marketing managers

Question

When the CEO summoned a group of senior marketing managers to study competitor's practices, the managers found that the difficulties were more serious than  they imagined it to be and the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and to analyze data from each store and every sales unit  and had run a multitude of experiments.

A.) they imagined it to be and the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and to analyze data from each store and every sales unit

B.) they imagined and that the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and analyze data from each store and every sales unit

C.) they had imagined and the competitor made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and analyze data from each store and every sales unit

D.) they imagined and that the competitor made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and to analyze data from each store and every sales unit

E.) they had imagined and that the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and analyze data from each store and every sales unit

chetan2u · Accepted Answer

When the CEO summoned a group of senior marketing managers to study competitor's practices, the managers found that the difficulties were more serious than  they imagined it to be and the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and to analyze data from each store and every sales unit  and had run a multitude of experiments.

The question is alll about PARALLELISM in gather, integrate and analyze and about the tense issue on three things : The managers found; the managers imagined; and competitors had done. So, the two later activities 'the managers imagined' and 'competitors had done' have happened prior to "the managers found' and therefore, should be in past perfect tense that is the verb should contain HAD.

A.) they imagined it to be and the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and to analyze data from each store and every sales unit
 Imagined requires HAD; to gather, integrate, and to analyze data NOT parallel; imagined IT to be is wrong

B.) they imagined and that the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and analyze data from each store and every sales unit
 Imagined requires HAD;

C.) they had imagined and the competitor made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and analyze data from each store and every sales unit
 'the competitor made' requires HAD;

D.) they imagined and that the competitor made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and to analyze data from each store and every sales unit
 Imagined requires HAD; 'the competitor made' requires HAD; to gather, integrate, and to analyze data NOT parallel;

E.) they had imagined and that the competitor had made huge investments in a survey to gather, integrate, and analyze data from each store and every sales unit
  Correct

E

nitesh50 · Answer

Hi

From what I know: 
we use past perfect tense to show the sequence between related events.
For example:
 Ram found that the dinosaurs were extinct for over a century.
IN this case Ram can only find about the extinction after it happens. Hence the usage of past perfect tense in this case would have been incorrect.

Coming to this question: 
I feel the managers finding and the company making huge investments are not related events i.e their sequencing is clear even without the past perfect tense. 
The managers can only find something after the company's competitors do something.

So how can Competitors made huge investments be correct.

Looking forward too a healthy discussion.
 GMATNinja 
 VeritasKarishma 
 DmitryFarber 
 daagh 
 chetan2u 
 egmat

elavendan1 · Answer

There are three events: 
1. CEO assigned the work
2. Managers finding competitor
3. Competitor making huge investments.

So, when CEO summoned, the managers thought of some x estimate. Here, we are not sure of the timing of these thoughts. Whether they had imagined before the summon or imagined after summoned? Not sure. So, option B is ambiguous, since it can also mean that, managers imagined when CEO summoned. In reality, the competitor already had some advantages and the managers already knew the fact. This is not established in B and conveyed only through E

lary301254M7 · Answer

"managers imagined" this is before "managers found"

therefore, we required "had imagined" to properly lay out the timeline

(E) is correct, though (B) looks enticing

daagh · Answer

Let's make life simple: First, the imaginations were prior to their finding the reality. Therefore, 'imagined' has to be 'had imagined'. Only C and E survive.

Second, the competitors had made the investments much before these manager came to be aware. It is not that the competitor made those huge investments as soon as the managers started to investigate. Therefore, the investment part also requires a past perfect. C wrongly uses a simple past as if both the events occurred concurrently.

E remains the ultimate choice

No need for further elaboration, I feel

LoneSurvivor · Answer

we have to use had in the " Company making investment par " otherwise we can not make this parallel because at last there is had.

Sanchitdd · Answer

could anyone explain if the "that" in option E is correct.

or is that "that" being used to identify that particular customer?

vasanthinidumolu · Answer

Hi  daagh

Is "had" required before imagine since the sequence is clear and imagination happened before found?

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  vasanthinidumolu , not sure if daagh Sir is currently active on the forum.

I would content that here, the sequence is not  entirely  clear, in the sense that there is  no   explicit time marker  present in the sentence.

Even in those sentences in which time marker  is  explicitly present (for example, the word  before ), GMAT is  still  open to using a  past perfect  tense, to depict the earlier of the two events.

For example, in the following officially correct sentence:

The personal income tax did not become permanent in the United States until the First World War;  before  that time  the federal government  had depended  on tariffs as its main source of revenue  .

So, my suggestion would be to  not  discount the usage of  past perfect  in any sentence that depicts two events in the past (and the earlier of those two events should be expressed as past perfect).

You can watch our  video  on  Past Perfect .

VerbalBot · Answer

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When the CEO summoned a group of senior marketing managers

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When the CEO summoned a group of senior marketing managers

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