The amount of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like accidents caused by faulty wiring, has increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing have been relaxed.
A)The amount of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like accidents caused by faulty wiring, has increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing have been relaxed.
B)The amount of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like those caused by faulty wiring, have increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing were relaxed.
C)The number of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like the number caused by faulty wiring, have increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing were relaxed.
D)The number of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like accidents caused by faulty wiring, has increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing had been relaxed.
E)The number of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like the number caused by faulty wiring, has increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing were relaxed.

OA is E.


My question is, generally, I agree with the explanation and that OA is E. I got this one correct, but while reviewing, I'm confused as to why "were relaxed" is correct and "have been relaxed" is not. If one of the answer choice was as shown below, would it have been correct?


The number of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like the number caused by faulty wiring, has increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing have been relaxed.

The explanation says that the action strictly happened in the past, how do we know that ? Can't it be ongoing action ?

To me, have been is also right. But the fact there is no such option makes E correct here.
If the sentence you provided were also there in the options, it would have been interesting...

Thank you supratims for your explanation. I'm also curious to know, would it have been correct If the sentence provided were also there in the options. MGMAT staf, please provide your insight. Thanks

"Number" quantifies car accidents. "Amount" does not.

The present perfect "has been relaxed" is used when there is a past action that is still ongoing. Although the regulations are still relaxed, the time when this relaxation took place was a singular point in the past. Therefore, it should be in the simple past tense, "were relaxed."

If you used the present perfect, it means the relaxation of the policies are still happening; but this doesn't make sense because the word "since" indicates a singular point in time.

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Ben Ku
Instructor
ManhattanGMAT

From what I have seen so far, I was under the impression that whenever we see the word "since", it always means we must use the past perfect tense, but this is a good example where this does not hold good.

hmm? really?

the VAST majority of verbs modified by "since..." are in the present perfect.

in fact, i can't think of a single example of a verb in any other tense that can legitimately be modified by "since...". (notice that i'm talking about the verb being modified, not any verb that may follow "since").

can you cite any examples in which a non-present-perfect verb is correctly modified by a "since..." phrase/clause? i totally can't think of one.

As per my understanding "Like" is used to compare nouns and there should be just one verb in the sentence.However I see here that the "like the number caused by faulty wiring," has got a verb "caused".
Could someone please explain the discrepancy

aneetha, in this sentence "caused" is actually a past participle. A participle is a form of the verb that is serving another purpose rather than as a verb. In this case "caused by faulty wiring" is describing the word "number".

You can see "caused" is not a verb if you try to turn this phrase into a sentence: "The number caused by faulty wiring" is not a sentence because it lacks a verb.

I hope this helps.

Thank you,

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

An example on Pg 108 of the SC guide illustrates the use of since in present perfect.

eg 'they have known each other since 1987'

It says "the idea of continuing action is reinforced by a time phrase, since 1987 that states how long the action has been occuring"

In fact, the following sentence illustrates an incorrect use of 'since' on that same page

"since 1986, no one broke that world record"

Going by these examples, how can do we refute the secong example posted upthread by pallavi. Can we not assume that the regulations were relaxed and continue to be so?

"The number of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like the number caused by faulty wiring, has increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing have been relaxed".

Thanks,

I have another doubt on this question. Would the below choice be incorrect if given? If so could you please explain why?

-The number of car accidents caused by faulty brakes, like the number caused by faulty wiring, has been increased significantly since regulations on manufacturing were relaxed.

I don't think the present perfect "has been" is needed here. I think "has" is all that is needed, and the GMAT prefers simple verb tenses over complex tenses.

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor