GATE ECE 2017 Set 1 | GA | Question: 2

Question

I __________ made arrangements had I _________informed earlier.

• A. could have, been
• B. would have, being
• C. had, have
• D. had been, been

Answer 1

Answer is A.

When we are talking about something that did not happen in the past, we should use 'past perfect'.

Comments

"I __________ made arrangements had I _________ informed earlier."
- This sentence uses the third conditional structure to express a hypothetical past situation and its potential result.

1. Structure of the third conditional: "If + past perfect, would/could have + past participle"

2. In this case, we have an inverted conditional structure, which is more formal:
   "could have + past participle + had + subject + past participle"

3. "could have" is used to express a past possibility that didn't happen.

4. "been" is the past participle of "be," which is correct in this context.

5. "had" introduces the conditional clause, replacing "if" in this inverted structure.

Hence, the correct option is: "could have, been"

The complete sentence reads: "I could have made arrangements had I been informed earlier."

This structure implies that the person was not informed earlier and therefore couldn't make arrangements. It's a more elegant way of saying:
"If I had been informed earlier, I could have made arrangements."