Albert Einstein dropped out of school before he reached the age of

Question

Albert Einstein  dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen and, without a certificate, was  not accepted into the Polytechnic school in Zurich.

(A) dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen and, without a certificate, was

(B) had dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen and, without a certificate, was

(C) dropped out of school, without a certificate, before he reached the age of fifteen and, was

(D) had dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen and, not having received a certificate, was

(E) had dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen and, without a certificate, were

jatin093 · Answer

IMO D

not having received a certificate makes sense

monica9220 · Answer

I think C is the right answer as here we do not need to establish the sequencing hence use of verb "had" is not required..am i on the right track?

PyjamaScientist · Answer

monica9220 
I think we do need a past perfect to state the intended series of related events. That is: Dropping out of school and then reaching the age of fifteen.
In my opinion thus, option D makes more sense.

Original sentence can be broken down as: Option (D):

Albert Einstein (main subject)

-   had dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen (Action 1) 
 
 and (conjunction) , not having received a certificate (verb-ing modifier modifying the succeeding clause, also makes sense with the doer),

- was not accepted into the Polytechnic school in Zurich. (Action 2)

tatubis · Answer

Hi, could someone explain to me why the correct answer is B? I don't think the use uf past perfect "had dropped out" is necessary since the order of events its clear thanks to the "before".

medhawi · Answer

Why option B is correct? The statement includes "before" which clearly states the occurrence of that event

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  tatubis  and  medhawi ,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your queries, we believe we can help resolve your doubts.

When the chronology is clear because of terms such as "before/after/when/earlier/later"…or because of clear mention of dates, using the past perfect tense is  not required , but the use of the past perfect is  not incorrect  either, in such cases.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

tatubis · Answer

ExpertsGlobal5  thanks for the reply! If past perfect tense is not necessary why would A) be incorrect though?

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  tatubis ,

We hope this finds you well.

The issue here is that there are more than two events taking place in this sentence - Einstein dropping out of school, Einstein reaching the age of fifteen, and Einstein not being accepted into the Polytechnic school. Thus, although "before" indicates the chronology of the first two events, it does not do so for the chronology between Einstein dropping out of school and Einstein not being accepted into the Polytechnic school, so past perfect is needed to illustrate the order of those two.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

nikhil0602 · Answer

I see there are two events happening in the past:

Albert Einstein -> dropped out of school
 -> not accepted into college

what happened first? because he didn't attend the school, he hadn't received the certificate and therefore he couldn't get into college

So we need past perfect.

A & C are out.
E has 'were' -> out

(B) had dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen and,  without a certificate , was
(D) had dropped out of school before he reached the age of fifteen and,  not having received a certificate , was

B feels better.

Albert Einstein dropped out of school before he reached the age of

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Albert Einstein dropped out of school before he reached the age of

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