OG 258 还是关于时态 - ChaseDream

258. The British sociologist and activist Barbara Wootton once noted as a humorous example of income maldistribution that the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo was earning annually exactly what she then earned as director of adult education for London.

(A) that the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo was earning

(B) that the elephant, giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo, had been earning

(C) that there was an elephant giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo, and it earned

(D) the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and was earning

(E) the elephant giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and that it earned

Choice A, the best answer, uses the idiomatic construction noted... that and clearly focuses on the salient information-- a comparison of annual earnings. In B, the structure of noted... that the elephant, giving rides ..., had been earning falsely implies that the reader already knows about the elephant--that is, that the existence of this particular elephant is not new information. Also, the past perfect had been improperly places the elephant's earning in the past, prior to Wootton's; consistent verb tense is needed to show that the actions are simultaneous. Choice C may be faulted for distortion of meaning and diminished clarity because it suggests that the point of Wootton's example was the elephant's very existence; comparative earnings are presented (after and) as incidental detail. Choice D is awkward and inexact; the whole circumstance that Wootton "noted" is best expressed in a clause that begins with that. Choice E does not use the idiomatic construction noted that x; therefore, and that it earned has no parallel construction to which it can be joined.

今天复习到这个题的时候时态又选错了，和上次一样选择了过去完成时（B）。而且看了前人的讨论我还是不明白为什么。

我记得过去完成时是用来表示过去的过去，我觉得题目中用了she then earned... 就表示了the elephant的动作是在earned之前的，要不怎么用“然后”呢，所以选了用过去完成时。

但og解释中说句子应该表示动作是同时的。我想问问大家这个同时性是怎么判断的啊，而且then不是表示的动作的先后吗？

1 at a particular time in the past or future:

I wish I had known then what I know now.

It was then that I realised she'd tricked me.

He started his career in St Petersburg - or Leningrad as it then was.