SAT grammar question (another one)

Test Preparation
1

<p>page 602 CB book #13</p>

<p>IN 1508, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon--THE SAME Ponce de Leon who later WOULD SEEK the fountain of youth--landed on Puerto Rico ACCOMPANIED by a small force. NO ERROR</p>

<p>At first I thought the answer was "WOULD SEEK", becuase i thought it had to remain in the past tense "sought", but it is no error. Can someone explain to me why "would seek" works? Thanks</p>

2

<p>this is the future tense of seek, because you are looking back on someone in the past, who WOULD later seek something</p>

3

<p>but since he actually did it and it was in the past, "seek" doesn't have to be in the past tense? </p>

<p>If it was "Ponce de Leon who later SOUGHT the fountain of youth.." would it be correct also....would both of them be correct for this sentence?</p>

<p>thanks for your help</p>

4

<p>yeah..I just took the practice test yesterday and was confused by the same problem
I think this problem was one of collegeboard's ambiguous problems
the answer is, in my opinion, "would seek"</p>

5

<p>Check this page:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/futureinpast.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/futureinpast.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

6

<p>The idea in this questions is that at the time that PdL landed, he had not yet sought the fountain. Therefore, he would go on to do it. It's relative to the time that he landed, not to present day time.</p>

7

<p>I know six years have passed since this question was posted, but I just came across it on the practice exam and wanted to add something. If you switch “later” and “would seek,” it makes more sense than if you replace “would seek” with “sought” and switched the two.
“In 1508, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon- the same Ponce de Leon who sought later the fountain of you-” See, it doesn’t sound right.
~Just for future reference for anyone who stumbles on this too. I was confused for a split second also.</p>

8

<p>This is a truly awful question because it really has two layers to it. BOTH “would seek” and “sought” can be grammatically correct, the difference is really one of which perspective is being emphasized.</p>

<p>The correct answer has to be “no error,” because the statement as it stands is correct. It is irrelevant that other words could be substituted that would also make the statement grammatically correct.</p>