A verb tense question with an imagined condition tests when events happen and whether they actually happen. Check that every choice agrees with the subject, then follow the time clues in the condition and result. Ask whether each event is real or imagined and whether the result is complete, ongoing, or still ahead. The verb must show both time and whether the result is imagined, so a past date alone doesn’t decide.
Hints
- Hint 1
The opening condition begins with Had instead of if. Try rewriting it with if at the start and had before succeeded.
- Hint 2
Compare the opening condition with the second sentence. Does the first sentence describe what actually happened, or imagine something different?
- Hint 3
Trace the timeline from 1791 to 1811. Is the sentence looking forward from 1811, or back over the two decades leading up to it?
Step-by-step
Read the condition, then the timeline
Step 1Identify the unreal condition
Read Had opponents of Alexander Hamilton’s banking program succeeded as if opponents had succeeded. Every choice agrees with the early federal government, so time and meaning decide. Did the opponents actually win? Congress approved the charter, however tells us they didn’t, so the blank gives an imagined result, not something that really happened.
- Step 2
Place the imagined span in time
What period would the lack of access cover? in 1791 gives the starting year, while by 1811 gives a later past endpoint. The words for two decades describe the twenty years between those dates. We’re viewing the imagined lack from 1811, so the verb must look back over a completed span, not ahead to years still to come.
- Step 3
Set aside forms that report facts
Can a verb that reports a fact express this result? Had lacked describes something already true before a later past moment, but here the lack depends on an unreal condition. Has lacked reports a lack reaching the present, which both treats it as real and ignores the past endpoint by 1811.
- Step 4
Mark the completed imagined result
For a completed past result that’s only imagined, use would have plus a past participle, the verb form used after have. Would lack gives an imagined result, but it doesn’t mark the two-decade span as complete by 1811. With would have lacked, the government’s twenty-year lack stays imaginary and is already complete at that past endpoint. Choice B.