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.
然后Ron也说了A这里的less than 35 years确实有点不是很好，但是不太影响这个句子，即便有点小小的awkward。
jenizaros wrote: Why the option A uses "Less than 35 years after..." rather than "In less than 35 years after..." ?
Ron wrote： i'm with you on this one; i'd likewise prefer a wording such as 'in less than 35 years after...', because, in my opinion, it better conveys the idea that the migrations took place continuously over the 35-year period. just plain 'less than' seemed to me, and possibly to you as well, to suggest that the migrations might have occurred all at once.
in any case, though, you've got to remember that correctness trumps clarity (and definitely trumps concision as well). therefore, differences in wording, such as this one, are trifling in comparison to actual errors in usage, grammar, diction, or idiom. i think both of us will agree that there is no idiom error in the wording chosen here; it's just a somewhat awkward wording (a situation by no means uncommon on the real test).
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2012-8-31 08:29:18
楼主
就是嘛，SC学到最后还是应该从大处着手
