Directions: This question presents a sentence, all or part of which is underlined. Beneath the sentence you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original; the other four are different. If you think the original is the best, choose the first answer; otherwise choose any one of the others.

The criminals fled before the police reached the spot of crime.

Explanation for (4): When there are two actions of past tense in sequence, the action that took place earlier should be in past perfect tense. This option rectifies the error of tense by using past perfect tense (had reached) Explanation for (5): The option does not rectify the error of faulty use of tense. In this sentence both the actions are stated in past perfect tense which is incorrect. The action that took place later should be in simple past tense.