Hi dear!
The following sentence appeared in a textbook.
1- After I ........(got-had got) out of the exam, I realised that I had answered one question wrong.
The model answer is "got". Why not "had got"? Thank you in advance.
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Hi, Mahmoud—You can use "got" or "had got." Both answers are correct, despite the "model answer" you see. The past perfect would not commonly be used there, though; "after" renders the time order clear and makes the past perfect unnecessary. But it is not incorrect to use it. In American English, if the past perfect were used there, we would use "had gotten" rather than "had got."
Thanks David! Really helpful. But before I sent this post, I had already suggested to my friends that "had got" could be used in this sentence. However, they said we couldn't for 2 reasons:
1- We can't use 2 verbs in the past perfect in one sentence.
2- The verbs "got out.." and "realized" both happened almost at the same time and, so, the verb "got" can't be used in the past perfect simple, and also "had answered one question wrong " is action number 1 here and must be in the past perfect.
What do you think of this?