Many cars that were damaged and completely wrecked in

Question

Many cars that were damaged and completely wrecked in accidents this year were sold without adhering to the nation’s transportation safety standards.

A)Many cars that were damaged and completely wrecked in accidents this year were
B)Many cars that were damaged or completely wrecked in accidents this year had been
C)Many cars that accidents damaged and completely wrecked this year have been
D)This year accidents damaged or completely wrecked many cars that will have been
E)This year many of the cars that were damaged and completely wrecked in accidents will be

daagh · Answer

First thing, the cars could either be damaged or wrecked and not both. So A, C and E or out.

On to tense now.

Damage or wreckage happened before selling. So  damaged or wrecked  requires past perfect while selling requires simple past.

B is the other way around and hence out

On to logic.

D is the only choice left out. But what is important in this passage is the fact that the damaged cars have been sold or will have been sold or will be sold without adhering to rules. This should be the primary focus of the sentence by making it as the main clause while damage or wreckage should play second fiddle. Doesn’t it suffer logical predication? How can we say for sure that many of the cars will have been sold? Going simply by grammar, may be, the cars that were damaged or wrecked ( not damaged and wrecked) will be sold makes some sense. But where is such a choice?

It looks as though the passage tries to emulate some similar one, missing the salient features though.

The official answer is sadly wrong on grammar. Any comments?

imania · Answer

Easy B, Car did not meet some standards... they were sold .... hence they were damaged in accidents so, Many cars that were damaged or completely wrecked in accidents this year had been sold... it makes a good sense to me

daagh · Answer

Does it sound right to say that the wreckage and damage in accidents occurred because of the sales done earlier, excluding all other causes of hazardous driving or any other deficiency that might have occurred after the sale? Does it mean that damages or wreckages will occur only when a car is sold without proper safety standards and not before? Logical predication is an important part of expression, a casualty in this case.

imania · Answer

some cars without safety standards were sold. Then , they were damaged in accidents.
2 actions happened in the past, one took place before another one.
still it's not logical?
 
sale of those cars is NOT the cause of the accidents, but not meeting standards. I'm not sure whether I'm clear enough daagh.

amma4u · Answer

A)Many cars that were damaged and completely wrecked in accidents this  year were
B)Many cars that were damaged or completely wrecked in accidents this  year had been  
C)Many cars that accidents damaged and completely wrecked this year  have been  - we need perfect past tense
D)This year accidents damaged or completely wrecked many cars that will have been -  awkward construction 
E)This year many of the cars that were damaged and completely wrecked in accidents will be -  awkward construction

Hence B.

jullysabat · Answer

Can some one explain why B is the correct answer.
Because which happened first takes the past perfect form and later one takes the past tense.
But here its differnet. So I am confused.

oldstudent · Answer

The reason why the majority of cars that were damaged or wrecked in accidents, is bcos they did not adhere to the nation’s transportation safety standards when they were sold. Clearly 
event 1 - Was that they were sold without safety standards
event 2 - The got wrecked and damaged in accidents

so event 1 will be used with past perfect and event 2 which comes later will be used with simple past.

Hope this helps

oldstudent · Answer

How can damage happen before selling???
This is selling of new cars and not the junk cars. Simply the cars were sold without safety standards bcos of which they could not sustain the accidents and were damaged

jullysabat · Answer

Ohh Now i got it.... because the cars were damaged and then sold so there were accidents... Now i got the sequence...
thanks for this clarification.....

Many cars that were damaged and completely wrecked in

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