Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern Texas.
The band U2 WAS just one of many new groups on the rock music scene in the early 1980s, but less than ten years later, U2 HAD fully ECLIPSED its early rivals in the panthe on of popular music.
这是书里给的解释:
The first independent clause uses simple past. The second independent clause (after the word but) contains a time marker (ten years later) and then mentions another action (had eclipsed) that occurs before that time marker. Even though had eclipsed is not the earliest action in the entire sentence, it is the earlier of the two actions in its independent clause.
为什么后面那个动词eclipsed用过去完成时呢? 解释没看太明白,是不是说该动作虽然不是发生最早的,但是发生在过去时间标志词之前? “it is the earlier action of the two actions in its independent clause"是指哪两个动作呢? 跪求大家指教~~~~~ 谢谢!!!!!!!!
Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern Texas.
ALess than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,
BIn less than 35 years since releasing African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,
CIn less than the 35 years since African honeybees had been released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,
DIt took less than 35 years from the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, when
EIt took less than the 35 years after the time that African honeybees were released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, and then
这道题是不是也用到上面那个知识点?
以下是我查到的最清楚解释,摘录自大神RON
if you were narrating in the present tense, you'd say the following: 'as of today, the bees have migrated as far north as southern texas.' therefore, since this sentence describes a situation in the past (it describes the situation 35 years after the release, which is before the present), you translate all present-tense verbs into the past tense. this turns 'have migrated' into 'had migrated'.
there is no explicit description of the 'second event' you're looking for in this problem, which is what makes it difficult. instead, the 'second event' is the point on the timeline, 35 years after the release of the bees. because the sentence describes a trend whose relevance continues up to and through that point, a perfect tense is appropriate.
wrong answers:
* choice b implies that the honeybees' descendants somehow released them (perhaps a very bizarre case of karmic cycles, but absurd no matter what).
* choice c: 'the 35 years since' implies that the present is 35 years after the release date. not only does this conflict with the meaning of the original, but it also renders the past perfect (from the underlined part) inappropriate: you'd need present perfect in this case. also, since the release is a point event, it would belong in the simple past.
* choice d: in this sentence, the commas + non-essential modifier ('..., when') seem to imply that the descendants' migration took place simultaneously with the release of the original honeybees. in addition, in this sentence, 'it' refers to some unspecified event (it can't refer to the descendants' migration, for the aforementioned reasons).
* choice e: all kinds of problems with this one. if you don't see what's wrong with it, reply and we will elaborate.