SC: If Texas were a country, it would have had

[direstraits007]

If Texas were a country, it would have had the highest incarceration rate in the world.

(A) If Texas were a country, it would have had
(B) If Texas had been a country, it would have
(C) If Texas were a country, it would have
(D) Had Texas been a country, it would have
(E) If Texas was a country, it would have

Source: MasterGMAT Mock GMAT

OA: C

I chose D. I think C is wrong because for subjunctive usage we need to use "If X were, Y would" but here the option C uses "would have".

Please reply...

Thanks!

~GeeMate.

[manassingh]

C - Follows the correct - if - else format.
i.e If Teaxas were then it would have

In D - The subject is not clear. There is no clear atecedent of it

[pawan_chitturu]

Can somebody please explain what is problem with option "E"

[RonPurewal]

If Texas were a country, it would have had the highest incarceration rate in the world.

(A) If Texas were a country, it would have had
(B) If Texas had been a country, it would have
(C) If Texas were a country, it would have
(D) Had Texas been a country, it would have
(E) If Texas was a country, it would have

Source: MasterGMAT Mock GMAT

OA: C

I chose D. I think C is wrong because for subjunctive usage we need to use "If X were, Y would" but here the option C uses "would have".

Please reply...

Thanks!

~GeeMate.

be careful there -- you're seeing an illusion. in particular, you think you're seeing "would have VERBed", but you're not -- you are actually just seeing "would VERB" (the exact construction that you just said you're looking for).
the trick, of course, is that the VERB itself in this case is "to have", so "would VERB" = "would HAVE".

choice (d) is inconsistent with itself, although you thought it was correct. because, again, you saw the same illusion.
since choice (d) uses the past subjunctive ("Had SUBJ been..."), it needs to say "would HAVE HAD". it doesn't say that.

i've never heard of this source before, but this is actually a pretty clever question.

[RonPurewal]

Can somebody please explain what is problem with option "E"

since this sentence deals with the possibility that is not the case (i.e., the state of texas as an independent country), you want to write a sentence in the hypothetical subjunctive. if you use the indicative past tense ("was") here, you are implying that texas once actually was an independent country.

--

here are two examples that illustrate the difference at hand:

if james were rich, he would move to las vegas and by a penthouse apartment.
this is the present tense hypothetical subjunctive, used if james, in the present, is NOT rich.

james's fortunes would constantly fluctuate. at any point, if he was rich, he could be found in exotic locales with beautiful women on his arm; if he was poor, he could be found slaving away for 18 hours a day to regain his wealth yet again.
in this case, since there were distinct intervals of time during which james actually WAS rich, we don't use a hypothetical subjunctive; since we are referring to actual occurrences, we just use the indicative.