Although he resisted the assignment, T. E. Lawrence....

[gmatwork]

Although he resisted the assignment, T. E. Lawrence, later known as Lawrence of Arabia, successfully led an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

a) Although he resisted the assignment, T. E. Lawrence, later known as Lawrence of Arabia, successfully led an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

b) Although he had resisted the assignment, T. E. Lawrence, later known as Lawrence of Arabia, successfully led an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

c) Although he resisted the assignment, T. E. Lawrence, later known as Lawrence of Arabia, had successfully led an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

d) Although he had resisted the assignment, Lawrence of Arabia, who successfully led an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire, was earlier known as T. E. Lawrence.

e) T. E. Lawrence, later known as Lawrence of Arabia, successfully led an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire, although they had resisted the assignment.


OA (A)

In this question, why do we really need past perfect. I read somewhere in the guides or elsewhere that if the two actions are done by the same subject, we can do with the simple past tense. e.g.

Hari drove to the market and bought the ice cream.

Both actions done by the same subject so we don't need past perfect.

[jnelson0612]

Hmm, I don't see past perfect in the original sentence. I just see two simple past tense verbs, "resisted" and "led". Can you clarify please? :-)

[gmatwork]

sorry the answer is B

[jnelson0612]

Here I think we have to clarify which happened first for meaning purposes. Was Lawrence resisting the assignment while he was actually leading the troops? That could be concluded if we just use simple past perfect. However, that meaning makes less sense than the concept that two events occurred at different times in the past:
1) first, he resisted the assignment
but then later
2) he successfully led the uprising.

The use of past perfect is also helpful when the later event is a change or surprise given the first event. For example,

"Although many had believed that the earth was flat, they later learned that the earth was round."

In this case, although Lawrence did not want to lead the uprising he actually was quite successful doing so when he did lead. Past perfect is appropriate in this case.

I think that in your example the chain of events is so obvious that the past perfect is not needed. You don't buy the product and then drive to the store; you must first drive to the store and then buy the product.

I realize that this can seem like hair splitting but I hope this helps. Here's another thread about past perfect that you may find helpful, and it references another thread about past perfect: present-perfect-tense-t13282.html