Prep1-3

viviansecret

prep1-3

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.

(A) Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,

(B) In less than 35 years since releasing African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,

(C) In less than the 35 years since African honeybees had been released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil,

(D) It took less than 35 years from the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, when

(E) It took less than the 35 years after the time that African honeybees were released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, and then

答案：A。这是关于时间状语的什么考点，我看的好晕啊。。。能不能请nn帮我分析下这题的解题思路和必杀技呢？请多多指教：）

[此贴子已经被作者于2009/8/25 3:52:40编辑过]

飞鹰_JK

同问，

我总觉得the bees had migrated north less than 35 year,这样的句子需要加个in, "in less than 35 years"，但BC肯定也不对...

没办法1987

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.