Hello, I've been doing a cloze test, where for the gap I have the following alternatives. a) made b) had made c) make "They wanted me to enter my password twice in case I ............. a mistake." I feel that "made" is correct, but I really can't understand why not "had made". Thank you
Hello. I think almost everyone would choose (a) as far as how the language is spoken today. Personally, I think (b) is valid, however, since the real meaning in my mind is: They wanted me to enter my password twice, in case I had made a mistake the first time I typed it.
"They wanted me to..." expresses what they wanted before you had entered anything. At that time, you had not entered anything, so the correct version is "... in case I made a mistake". It was their desire, before you entered anything, that you enter your password twice ... in case you made a mistake the first time (still in the future at the time they expressed the need to have the password entered twice).
I agree with Panjandrum and would add this in further explanation: "had made" would be right if you had already entered your password once. The sentence would then be: They wanted me to enter my password a second time in case I had made a mistake.
