In answer choice (A), what is the subject of of verb "was"

It looks like a fragment. I am not sure though.

BelalHossain046

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I wouldn't expend a lot of mental energy trying to determine whether (A) is a fragment, so long as you can see that the modification in this option is illogical. Typically, when we begin a sentence with an "-ing" modifier, the subject of the main clause will follow immediately after. For example:

Attempting to stay warm during his misguided camping trip, Tim snuggled close to the bear that had wandered into his tent.

We can say that "attempting to stay warm" is describing "Tim," or we can sat that "attempting to stay warm" is describing Tim's action. The important thing is that "Tim" comes right after the modifier to make the sentence's meaning clear.

In (A), we get: "When drafting the Declaration of Sentiments that was adopted at the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Conventions in 1848, included."

Because it's Elizabeth Cody Stanton who did the drafting, we want her name to immediately follow the "-ing" phrase. It's confusing to follow the "-ing" phrase with another modifier ("included") since it's not clear, at first, what either "drafting" or "included" is describing.

So while (A) isn't technically a fragment, it's illogical and confusing, and this is reason enough to eliminate it.

I hope that helps!
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Dear GMATGuruNY MartyTargetTestPrep IanStewart VeritasPrepHailey AjiteshArun DmitryFarber GMATNinja GMATRockstar,

Why is PAST PERFECT in choice C. wrong?

When the Declaration of Sentiments drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton was adopted at the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, a call for female enfranchisement had been included in it.

Is there a rule that when WHEN is used, PAST PERFECT cannot be used?

IMHO, the call should logically be included in the draft BEFORE the draft was adopted.

Why is this thinking wrong?

C uses a passive construction that makes it worse than the right answer, independent of verb tense. But compare these two sentences:

When Stanton drafted the Declaration, she worked as a trial lawyer.
When Stanton drafted the Declaration, she had worked as a trial lawyer.

They're both grammatically correct, but they don't mean the same thing. If you can see why they have a different meaning, you'll see why past perfect is the wrong choice for the sentence discussed in this thread.
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There is no such rule.

Consider the following example:

When we arrived, the bride and groom had already said their vows.

Makes complete sense.


The problem is that including something is not always discrete action, and, in this case "included" seems to refer to something ongoing.

Consider the following:

The troupe of actors included five men and five women.

In that sentence, "included" conveys that something was going on continuously.

Now here's another version:

The troupe of actors had included five men and five women.

In that sentence, "had included" conveys that something had been going on continuously but ceased to occur. The troupe no longer included five men and five women.

Similarly, choice (E) conveys that when the Declaration was adopted, a call for female enfranchisement had been included but was no longer included in it, a somewhat illogical meaning.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway here is to look for issues in logic rather than merely wonder what "the rule" is.
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Just to clear it out, does the Subject has to be a Proper Noun or a Noun Phrase and not a pronoun?

Dear MartyTargetTestPrep GMATGuruNY DmitryFarber,

If, on the other hand, choice C. were:

When the Declaration of Sentiments drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton was adopted at the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, SHE had included a call for female enfranchisement in it.

Then, the above would be correct, right?
Elizabeth HAD ACTIVELY INCLUDED a call BEFORE the draft was adopted.
By the time the draft was adopted, she had finished drafting and hence no longer wrote / edited / or included any thing in the draft.

Is my understanding correct?

I'm not sure if this answers your question, but...

No, the subject does not have to be a proper noun or noun phrase. In fact, the correct answer choice (E) has a pronoun ("she") as the subject.


Your example starts with, "When the Declaration of Sentiments was adopted..."

• We expect the ensuing action to be something that occurred at the same time that the Declaration was adopted.
• Instead, we get a past perfect verb ("had included"), indicating an action that occurred BEFORE the Declaration was adopted.
• So the opening modifier ("When...") and the main verb ("had included") don't really jive in this particular case.

Choice (E) avoids that problem. The sentence starts with, "When Stanton drafted the Declaration of Sentiments..."

• We expect the ensuing action to be something that occurred at the same time that Stanton drafted the Declaration.
• And that's exactly what we get: when drafting the Declaration, Stanton INCLUDED in it a call for female enfranchisement.

In (E) the opening modifier ("When...") and the main verb ("included") make sense together.
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IanStewart Can I say that #1 conveys that She drafted the declaration at a time when she was a trial lawyer WHILE #2 says she was a trial lawyer and later on (when she was not one) she drafted the Declaration?

So "when" CAN be used along with two different sentence. What decides the usage of "when" is the meaning the sentence plans to convey

Yes, that's exactly right. By the past verb tense we use, we can say that one event was completed before another, or that one event happened at the same time as another. And in GMAT SC, often meaning will be the only criterion you can use to choose the verb tense that is best, since often more than one tense will be correct if you only think about grammar.

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Is it true that the word ???when??? suggests that two actions happened at the same time and hence whenever "when" is used the tenses have to be the same (all the time)?

Hello Hoozan,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

Yes: "when" is always used to refer to a point in time, so if a "when" phrase modifies an action the action expressed in the phrase and the action modified by the phrase typically have a sense of concurrence.

However, these actions need not be in the exact same tense; it depends on the meaning conveyed. For example, "When you got home, I was cooking dinner.": here "got home" is in the simple past tense, but "was cooking" is in the simple past continuous tense because the latter is an action that was ongoing and the former is not.

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