In June, 1981, six teenagers in the village of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia,

Question

In June, 1981, six teenagers in the village of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia,  claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, who  they say has continued to appear to them over the ensuing years.

(A) claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, who
(B) claimed to have visions of the Virgin Mary, whom
(C) claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, whom
(D) claimed to have visions of the Virgin Mary, who
(E) had claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, whom

daagh · Accepted Answer

This is a terrible topic. The non-underlined part says that in June 1981, some people claimed to have visions of Virgin Mary ……, who then has continued to appear to them over the ensuing years. If Mary were to appear in later years, how would they say it in an earlier time of June 1981? This like a child’s play who often mixes up tenses as saying I saw tomorrow. In addition, the second part containing the subordinate clause unnecessarily shifts to simple present and present perfect from the past tense of the main clause.

The point the topic wants to prove perhaps is the use of  who or whom  and the use of past perfect. Since the visions must have occurred earlier than their claim, obviously we are required to use  “to have had”  along with a simple past, which is sufficient to indicate prioress. ‘Had clamed’ is very wrong.

On the use of  ‘who or whom ’, we can see that the later part of the sentence has verb  ‘has continued “ which needs to have a subject or a subject pronoun pronoun such as  who  rather than an object pronoun ‘ whom ’.

On the difference between  'to have had and to have':  when you claim  'to have visions' , it means here that you are having visions just then as you make that claim. On the contrary, when you claim  'to have had visions' , it indicates that you had the visions before you have come forward to make the claim, which is the correct context.

As such, not withstanding the terrible handling of the tenses in the non-underlined parts, structurally A will be the correct one .

tennis1ball · Answer

D.

E is wrong due to tense.

BC are wrong due to whom.

A is wrong due to have had. "over the ensuing years" means it continues after their claim, but "have had" means it occurred before the girls' claim.

jyotsnasarabu · Answer

But the official answer is A...........I fail to undertand why?

mst · Answer

usage of have had is right.
To show continuation, the sentence would have to be something like: Since 1981, they have been having visions of Mary.

To make it simpler, replace have visions with seen.
In 1981, teenagers claimed to have seen Mary.
which means, they claimed to have had visions of Mary.

sid3699 · Answer

My answer is A.

1) Have had or Has had is present perfect, with had as the past participle. Present perfect indicates that action started in the past and continues in the future or the effect of the action continues in the future. Also, Has had is used for the third person singular (he/she/it) while Have had is used for all other persons (I/you/we/they).

The Have had usuage is correct because the sentence tells us that the visions continued since the 1981. Eliminate B and D.

2) Who is used when one is referring to the subject of a clause and whom is used when one is referring to the object of a clause. Virgin Mary is the subject in the second clause and the six teenagers are the object. Therefore, we should use who and not whom. Eliminate C and E.

Ayrish · Answer

hi.
quite challenging )))

Please consider my version

In June, 1981, six teenagers in the village of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia,   claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, who   they say has continued to appear to them over the ensuing years.
(A) claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, who
(B) claimed to have visions of the Virgin Mary,  whom 
(C) claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary,  whom 
(D) claimed to have visions of the Virgin Mary, who
(E) had claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary,  whom

1st of all we can eliminate all answers with   whom .  (can comment, if needed)
2nd between A and D 
If you'd like to use  visions  as   vivid mental image  , the right construction of usage will be  Have visions . 
For ex. He   had visions   of becoming the Elton John of his time. (past simple)
 "claimed to have visions"  means that teenagers "claimed" and at the same time "have visions" of Mary, but author want to show that teenagers "had vision" before they "claimed". That is the reason of "Have had vision"  A .

e  also have other awkward usage of perfect t. "had claimed in June 1981".

hope it will be useful.

TraderAK · Answer

Answer A

"who" is required i/o "whom".
who has continued to appear.......

We are talking about June, 1981. So, we need past perfect "have had" i/o present "have".
claimed to have had visions of the.........

alchemist009 · Answer

i am going with the option A. whom is not required here because who modifies mary which is the subject of the verb has continued. BUT i have doubt about sequence of tense here. the usage of present tense is legit here while the starting of the sentence is past. please help

daagh · Answer

1. To have had visions is called a perfect infinitive. The use of a perfect infinitive ensures that the visions wee of a past time prior to 1981

The use of a simple infinitive  to have  in D implies that the visioning may belong to the moment of claiming, as along with to have the visions in the future too, thus diverging from the intended meaning of the original. Per se, D does not assert that the visioning was an act of pre–1981. This is the reason for us to choose A over D

2. Of course there is no issue in deciding between who and whom, and who is the befitting one since who is used a pro-noun subject of the sub - clause.

Paris75 · Answer

Norrowed down to A and D but choose D...

Need to understand context here: "the child had visions and they then claims to have those visions" => therefore: "  claimed to have had visions "

Answer A indeed!

arirux92 · Answer

This is one of my favorite constructions :

Say I want to use the present perfect to say I talked to someone and will continue to do so..

I have talked to Jaco.

have is not the verb, it is have talked.

Claimed to have had visions of Mary.

Here had is doing the function of talked.

Claimed to have visions of Mary implies that have is being used as the main verb.

He had had a heart attack before he became well is correct Two events, one with past perfect one with simple present.
He had a heart attack before he become well is wrong. It is two simple present events (We need one past perfect)

Be very careful of where have is being used as a verb. If we want to use the perfect tense there, we need have had/ had had. It's very weird to the ears but you must learn to understand it!!!!

09173140521 · Answer

COULD someone tell why in answer C..... whom is incorrect ? I cannot understand how we can understand "who" or "whom" is correct. please clarify . I had seen all comment but I did not recognize how we can find SUBJECT and OBJECT

rishab0507 · Answer

Subject  is the doer of the action and  Object  is the receiver of action. We use WHO for subject and WHOM for object. 
Now in this sentence it may seem that six teenagers are subject: Doer of action ,having dream and virgin mary is object : but who vs whom rule doesn't work strictly like that, 
You have to see the clause also to which WHO/ WHOM is referring, 
Who is referring to 2nd clause in this virgin mary is subject and not the object. 
Yes who vs whom differ w.r.t clause they are referring to. Although WHO is correct but its not simply by the rule that virgin mary is subject of whole sentence. Virgin mary is subject of 2nd clause and not complete sentence.

Jupiter3 · Answer

Having visions happened before they claimed, so we should use "had done" style: had had visions. But there is "to" here, so it was written as " clamed to have had visions." Am I right to think so?

VerbalBot · Answer

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In June, 1981, six teenagers in the village of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia,

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

In June, 1981, six teenagers in the village of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia,

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