<p>Despite (A) its cultural importance, the Daily Gazette lost (B) 70 percent of its subscribers since 1920 and, by 1955, was losing (C) as much as (D) $200,000 a year. No error (E)</p>
<p>I get why the answer is B, lost needs to be changed to has lost because of "since."</p>
<p>Are there any other signal words for present or past perfect?</p>
<p>I believe it should actually be had lost.
Think of a timeline.
This website illustrates the timelines for different tenses beautifully.
[ENGLISH</a> PAGE - Past Perfect](<a href=“http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/pastperfect.html]ENGLISH”>Past Perfect Tense | ENGLISH PAGE)</p>
<p>Past perfect:
It’s like a past event of the past that ended…
Ex. I had done my homework when I arrived to school.
Arrived is a past. Had done is what happened before a past event (arrived in this case).</p>
<p>Therefore, in the sentence,
Despite its cultural importance, the Daily Gazette lost 70 percent of its subscribers since 1920 and, by 1955, was losing as much as $200,000 a year.</p>
<p>Daily Gazette’s loss of subscribers happened before the losing of 1955 (a certain time period).
Since two different events from different time periods are introduced, the one that happened before the other should be in past perfect tense. (had + past participle)</p>
<p>If you have time, check out the website. It illustrates the different tenses extremely well.</p>
<p>I agree with Jefferey Jung.</p>
<p>It should be “had lost”.</p>