Difficult Question!!!

[lhn]

By November 1914 the government ---- to acknowledge that its policy ----.

A) is forced / has failed
B) had been forced / failed
C) was forced / has failed
D) would have been forced / failed
E) was forced / had failed

Thanks in advance...

[lhn]

Difficult question???

[ana2005]

I'd chose E)

[lhn]

I'd chose E)

Thank you for giving an answer Ana2005.

Especially, I would like to hear from the native speakers.

Could you please explain why you choose that?

[ana2005]

A) "By Nov 1914 the gov is forced to acknowledge that its policy has failed". I think his one would make sense if you had a context. You can be using a "historical present", I mean, narrating past events using a present tense. Since there is no context, I would prefer another one.

B) "By Nov 1914 the gov had been forced to acknowledge its policy failed". For this one to make sense, I think it would need a Past Perfect in the second clause: ...to acknowledge his policy had failed

C) "By Nov 1914 the gov was forced to acknowledge that its policy has failed". This has the same problem of coherence as B). Either you use present ... present perfect or past... past perfect, but this is a mixture.

D) "By Nov 1914 the gov would have been forced to acknowledge that its policy had failed". I suppose this one could also make sense if there was a context. Something like: None of the leaders knew at the beginning that by Nov 1914 the gov would have ...". Without a context, I don't think it's the best.

E) "By Nov 1914 the gov was forced to acknowledge that its policy had failed". No objections.

I'd also like to hear the opinion of native speakers. Sometimes this kind of exercises we students are forced to solve are really fiendish

[lhn]

I'd also like to hear the opinion of native speakers. Sometimes this kind of exercises we students are forced to solve are really fiendish.

I OBSOLUTELTY agree with you Ana2005.