CAT QUESTION
The health commissioner said that the government had implemented strict measures to eradicate the contaminated food and, despite the recent illnesses, it will try to prevent the outbreak from recurring in the future.
it will try
that it tried
it had tried
it would have tried
that it would try

EXPLANATION
In the original sentence, the verb "had implemented" is in the past perfect tense, indicating that this event occurred at some point before the commissioner spoke. The verb "will try", however, is in the simple future. When the future is indicated from the point of view of the past, the simple future is not used. Instead, the conditional is required. For example, "The man said that he would buy a new car" is preferable to "The man said that he will buy a new car." We need to find a conditional verb. Moreover, the pronoun "it" begins a new clause and thus requires repetition of "that" in order to make clear, using parallel structure, that this new clause is still something that the commissioner said. For example, "The man said that he would buy a new car and that he would drive it everywhere" is preferable to "The man said that he would buy a new car and he would drive it everywhere."

Can I apply the same logic for the below OG question and choose could (D) - Also is there a rationale behind using conditional when the tense is past/past present

OG QUESTION

[Deleted because this question is from a banned source - see below.]

First, the OG is a banned source; we cannot post or answer any questions from the OG.

The CAT question takes place entirely in the past because the statement made by the health commissioner is in the past. If you are standing from the time point of the statement, here is the timeline:

1. The government had implemented measures -- this took place BEFORE the commissioner's statement, so it requires the PAST PERFECT.
2. The health commissioner said
3. The government would try to prevent outbreaks -- this will take place AFTER the commissioner's statement, so it requires the CONDITIONAL.

The conditional tense is basically the "past future," and is used when an event in the past referred to the future. Since the future tense is "will + verb", the conditional tense is "would + verb". Only (D) and (E) use the conditional tense (actually (D) is a kind of conditional perfect).

(E) is correct because it also has the word "that" which is required to make the two things the commissioner said parallel.

["could" is not a form of the conditional tense]

Hope that helps.

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Ben Ku
Instructor
ManhattanGMAT

Ben, I get your explanation regarding the future from the past's perspective. However, i don't understand the need for "that" --- primarily because, I see the whole sentence as one clause and not two as the answer explanations points out. Can you shed some light, maybe with an example or two? Thx.

If you have two verbs, each with its own subject, you have two clauses.

Although it is a verb that makes a clause a clause, no single clause can have two subjects. It can have a single compound subject. For instance, "Jack and Jill ran up the hill" is a single clause, with "Jack and Jill" as its compound subject. But "Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after" is two clauses, as would be the far simpler "Jack fell and Jill tumbled."

Consider these further examples:

1--ACCEPTABLE--GMAC announced that it had not renewed its contract with ETS and would rely on ACT for future exams.

2--ACCEPTABLE--GMAC announced that it had not renewed its contract with ETS and that it would rely on ACT for future exams.

3--UNACCEPTABLE--GMAC announced that it had not renewed its contract with ETS and it would rely on ACT for future exams.

1 includes a single, albeit compound, clause after word "that": "it had not renewed..and...would rely...."

2 includes two clauses, each after its own "that": "it had not renewed..." and "it would rely...."

3 includes two clauses, "it had not renewed..." and "it would rely...." But these have to share the single "that."

Frankly, if you look through style guides you won't find that the examples clause parallelism errors look too much like 3, or like the question that prompted this thread, but the GMAT has peculiarly strong ideas about parallelism.

i think it's safe to say that without the "it" the "that" wouldn't be required..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

I read in some GMAT verbal forum that we cannot use 'that' after a comma (,)! Where does that rule apply?

You cannot use "that" after a comma when "that" is being used to set off an essential modifier.

For example, we would never have:
The house, that is red, is mine.

Instead we say:
The house that is red is mine.

However, I am having a hard time thinking of any grammatically correct sentence in which we would use the word "that" after a comma, even when "that" is functioning as a relative pronoun.

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor