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David studied for his math exam for several hours

David received the highest grade in his class.

I would rephrase like this: Receiving the highest grade in his math class, David had studied for his exam for several hours.

But this sounds wrong to me, somehow?? People could think the two thing happened all at once?

  1. David studied for his math exam and David received the highest grade in class

  2. After studying for his math exam for several hrs, David received the highest grade.

Now, which one of these 3 sentences separates the two things by the right amount of time?

most venerable sir
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2 Answers2

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Receiving the highest grade in his math class, David had studied for his exam for several hours. - I wouldn't bet on it being ungrammatical, but I feel the effect 1st-cause 2nd order makes it clumsy. Maybe, if you started with "Finally receiving..."

David studied for his math exam and David received the highest grade in class - is fine, if simple; even though, I'd remove the second "David".

(After) studying for his math exam for several hrs, David received the highest grade. - this one seems IMHO best. I guess it's possible to be more precise and go with "(After) having studied for...", too.

jules
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  • David must have studied the night before, so idk if "after" would precisely represent this fact. I mean there ways that you say the same thing but the reader might, after reading the sentence, think that David studied in class, and then went to take the exam. – most venerable sir Jul 15 '14 at 23:34
  • Something I am also not sure about is whether putting a gerund in front of a sentence like what I did with receiving bla bla, makes the action seem like happening at the same time as the action on the later part of the sentence. – most venerable sir Jul 15 '14 at 23:38
  • Eg, in the sentence, receiving the highest score, David had studied for the exam. Does this mean David studied for the exam and was gonna get the highest score. – most venerable sir Jul 15 '14 at 23:42
  • @user11355: 1) there's no indication whatsoever as to where, and how long before the exam, David studied; 2) gerund at the beginning does not necessarily mean the two actions happened at the same time; 3) no info there on what David's intentions were and what you think of his score. It's "he studied and succeeded", period. Cf. "Having studied for his math exam for a mere few hrs, David received the highest grade." OR "Having studied hard for his math exam for hrs, David received the highest grade." – jules Jul 16 '14 at 07:13
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If you want to combine the two sentences into one, try it this way:

Because he had studied for the exam for several hours, David received the highest grade in his math class.

kylieschwede
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  • But what if your given four choices – most venerable sir Jul 15 '14 at 13:58
  • I meant three, given above – most venerable sir Jul 15 '14 at 14:02
  • Okay, here are a couple of other options: – kylieschwede Jul 15 '14 at 15:44
  • Oops, hit "enter" too soon! Here are the options: 1) David received the highest exam grade in his math class after studying (or because he studied) for several hours. 2) Studying for several hours earned David the highest exam grade in his math class. The second one uses passive voice, so isn't ideal. Your original rephrasing is confusing because it puts the cause after the effect. Simply connecting the two starting sentences with "and" is repetitive. So you want to specify that the effect followed the cause, and avoid repeating too many words. – kylieschwede Jul 15 '14 at 15:52
  • @kylieschwede um, the second one does not use passive voice. It's in active voice. And, of course, there's no reason to dis passive voice anyway. It is exactly as fine as active voice. (And it's really quite sad that it usually gets dissed precisely by the people who can't reliably identify it. Not pointing at you in particular, even Strunk and White epically fail at it.) – RegDwigнt Jul 15 '14 at 18:22