Hello -

Question: "Having forfeited her severance package in order to keep the rights to her intellectual property, the employee believed that she had won a moral victory."

so i have to use "had won" in the later sentence because "having forfeited" in the first sentence or because "believed"? (why i cannot use "won" instead of "had won".
basically i'm confused with:
1. the tense i need use after the modifier "Having verb-ed"
2. what "Having verb-ed" trying to show in term of the action


Thanks.

can i ask a OGGmat review here?

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#1
'having forfeited' doesn't compel you to use any particular verb tense; it could make sense followed by either past or present tense, depending of course on context.
examples:
having lost its wings during maturation, the insect was unable to fly. --> i'm relating a past event in context
having lost its wings during maturation, the insect is now unable to fly. --> i'm pointing out the past event that serves to justify the present situation

what detemines the tense of 'won' in this sentence is its relation to 'believed'. the moral victory is presumed to have been won before the person cogitates about that idea, so the perfect tense is appropriate. so:
if the believing takes place in the present tense, you use present perfect: she believes that she has won a moral victory.
if the believing takes place in the past tense, you use past perfect, as is done in the example sentence.

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#2
'having' is a participle, essentially equivalent to either 'has' or 'had' depending on the tense context of the rest of the sentence.
analogies first:
seeing the hopelessness of the situation, joe decided to fold his hand --> joe saw that the situation was hopeless, and so decided...
seeing the hopelessness of the situation, joe decides to fold his hand --> joe sees that the situation is hopeless, and so decides...
make the analogy to your sentence:
having forfeited could refer to 'she had forfeited', as in the first analogy sentence (this is the case in the example you've posted)
having forfeited could also refer to 'she has forfeited' if the rest of the sentence is in the present tense (as in the second analogy sentence above)