Hi, I have a question regarding usage of past perfect tense. In particular, I want to reference material taken from GMAT SC strategy guide (4th edition) pg 100, 5th paragraph.

"Using this construction, you can even make a tricky sentence in which the first clasuse expresses an early action in simple past. Then, a second clause expresses a later action in past perfect to indicate continued effect (by a still later past time).

ex. The band U2 was just one of the many new groups on the rock musis scene in the early 80s, but less than ten years later, U2 had fully eclipsed its early rivals in the pantheon of popular music."

My question is that I thought past perfect is used to indicate an earlier past event and simple past is used to indicate a later past event. Therefore the information quoted above seems to contradict normal usage of past perfect tense.

Can an instructor please shed light on this and explain why the above sentence construction is correct?

Thank you very much.

Jenai

Great question Jenai! The main point is that this use of past perfect is an exception to the general rule.

Generally, when you have two verbs in a sentence, one simple past and one past perfect, the timeline from earliest to latest event is (1) past perfect, (2) simple past, (3) now.

When we arrived at the theater, the movie had started.
Timeline: (1) movie began, (2) we arrived, (3) now.

In this exception:

The band U2 was just one of the many new groups on the rock musis scene in the early 80s, but less than ten years later, U2 had fully eclipsed its early rivals in the pantheon of popular music."
Timeline: U2 a new group (early 80's), U2 eclipses rivals (sometime in 80's), U2 top of pantheon of music (early 90's).

It's truly a tricky sentence, as the past perfect action happens before a certain implied event, which is simply the conclusion of that action. The main thing to note is that you could never make this exceptional use of the tense without very careful use of the time-indicating phrases in italics above.

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Emily Sledge
Instructor
ManhattanGMAT