When he had run for mayor of Cleveland in 1968, Carl Stokes won the el

On the GMAT, you should only use the perfect tense (present/past) only when it's justified to do so (that is, you want to show 2 actions taking place at two distinct points on the time line).
Other than that, you should stick to basic tenses. (present,past,future)

Now look at the sentence again. Although its right to say he ran for mayorship, then won, thus proving that an African American candidate can win an election, it is not critical to seperate them here with the perfect tenses. In this sentence, all we want to do is say "Hey, here's an African American, he ran for an election and he won, so you can't say black americans can't win elections"
All these can be represented with the simple tense in (D).

D should be right because past perfect tense is about an action that was accomplished and finished in the past.

Why would you not use past perfect here? Because the running is happening at the same time period as the winning; in 1968. I'll give you two examples:

eg I ran a lot in the summer of 1969 and I eventually won a marathon. --> This is two ind. clauses linked by conjunction "and" describing two things that both happened in 1969

eg I had run a lot until the summer of 1969, time at which I eventually broke my ankle. --> this demonstrate two sequences of event 1) X used to run a lot in the past UNTIL 2) he broke an ankle that year(but remember that he stopped running after then)

Getting back to the original question, we have NOT a sequence of events but rather, a description of two events that both happened in 1968 without any event preceding another one.

Since he ran and won at about the same time, you need a time marker such as ‘when’ to conjugate the two events. Again you need a simple past tense to denote both events. D is the choice

I selected C.

In A, Use of past perfect is wrong.
In B, unnecessary introduction of and,
In C, Correct modifier, modifying Carl Strokes.
In D, unnecessary introduction of he.
In E, unnecessary wordy and wrong tense.

Please share OA.

I hope my explanation helped, if indeed please give me kudos.

C has a couple stylistic problems.
1) What is the role of the two commas in the choice? The commas make ‘in 1968’ alienated from the stream of the sentence
2. A participle is used when you have to express a less important or incidental theme. IMO, use of participial ‘running’ is not proper because running is as important and as equal in character as winning in this case. Hence, we should assign equal working verbs for these two functions namely ‘ran and won’. Using a present particle ‘running’ downgrades the important act of ‘running’ for the post. At the same time, in the latter part ‘proving’ is correctly expressed, because ‘proving’ is a corollary of running and winning and hence is of secondary importance.

Hi ashishdara

When he had run for mayor of cleveland in 1968, Carl stokes won the election,proving that an african american candidate can be elected in a city in which african american constitute a minority of population

1)When he had run for mayor of cleveland in 1968,
Wrong. Past perfect is wrong because it means Carl's running for mayor completed before Carl won the election. That does not make any sense. We just need a simple reporting sentence. --> simple past is better than past perfect.

2)He ran for the mayor of cleveland in 1968,and
Wrong. "and" is wrong. we do not need parallel structure here.

3)Running in 1968,for the mayor of cleveland,
Wrong. Modifier "running in 1968" means Carl won the election while he was running. Running what? Be aware of the comma after "1968".

4)When he ran for mayor of cleveland in 1968,
Correct.

5)In 1968 he had run for mayor of cleveland,and
Wrong. "and" is wrong, we do not need parallel structure here. In addition, past perfect is unnecessary.

Hope it helps.

When he had run for mayor of cleveland in 1968, Carl stokes won the election,proving that an african american candidate can be elected in a city in which african american constitute a minority of population
1)When he had run for mayor of cleveland in 1968, (Simple past tense is better when two events are happening at same time)
2)He ran for the mayor of cleveland in 1968,and (Pronoun should be used in second part of the sentence)
3)Running in 1968,for the mayor of cleveland, (While running in 1968 cleveland won the election totally changes the meaning)
4)When he ran for mayor of cleveland in 1968, (Correct)
5)In 1968 he had run for mayor of cleveland,and (Usage of past perfect is wrong)

Kudos please if you like my explanation!

Step 1: Check out the verb tenses. Is "had run" correct? No; "ran" is more appropriate here. "Had run" suggests that the action occurred and ended before the time period mentioned. Eliminate (A).

Step 2: Eliminate (E).

Step 3: (B) does function as a modifier (as does (A)), but rather as a clause. In this role, the pronoun "he" is ambiguous. Does "he" stand for Carl Stokes? Probably, but the absence of a modifier creates a vague and awkward sentence. Eliminate. (C) does not use the preferred past tense and also intersperses "in 1968" between "running" and "for mayor". (D) seems to be OK. This is the correct choice.

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

D

(D) makes the sequence of events perfectly clear: Stokes ran for mayor at essentially the same time as he won the election. (A) and (E) use the past perfect had run, which makes it sound as if Stokes ran for mayor long before actually winning. (C)'s phrasing is awkward and its use of running tends to obscure the sense of the victor/ as the conclusion of the campaign. (B)'s phrasing is awkward and it's unclear who the antecedent of the pronoun he is.

egmat

Can you please elaborate why option C - running in 1968 for Mayor of Cleveland, Carl Stokes won the election, proving... is incorrect

Here as per my understanding:
- running in 1968 for mayor of Cleveland modifies the noun - Carl Stokes
- proving.... presents the result of the preceding clause - as a result of winning the election, he proved...; the doer of both the actions are also same

However, I ruled out this option because as per the original sentence: There is a correlation (not causality) that has been constructed by using - When he ran in 1968 for Mayor> he won; which has probably not been communicated as clearly in Option C.

Is that understanding correct ?

daagh VeritasKarishma Bunuel mikemcgarry generis Skywalker18

Guys, can you please compare this question with

https://gmatclub.com/forum/based-on-acc ... 62173.html

I read the thread here, applied same in question in the aforementioned link and got that wrong!!
And now I'm baffled.
Can someone, please, clarify?

When he had run for mayor of Cleveland in 1968,Carl Stokes won the election, proving that an African American candidate can be elected in a city in which African Americans constitute a minority of the population.


(A) When he had run for mayor of Cleveland in 1968,

(B) He ran for mayor of Cleveland in 1968, and

(C) Running, in 1968, for mayor of Cleveland,

(D) When he ran for mayor of Cleveland in 1968,

(E) In 1968 he had run for mayor of Cleveland, and


1-meaning- an event happened in past.
2- Clause 1 is best suited as a modifier for the 2nd clause- ‘and’ options- B, E- WRONG
3- had run- NOT NEEDED- as year is mentioned. N the clauses don’t talk about different time period- ‘A’- WRONG
4- C- in 1968 separated by commas-reflects non essential- No the intention. Running as modifier doesn’t reflect a past event.
Hence, D Meaning, structure all CORRECT.

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