Past Perfect question

[flysoohigh63]

p.58 Foundations of GMAT Verbal, Drill 3.5

'He woke up early and cheerfully did the dishes'

The question in the book is about adverb errors, and it says 'correct' in the answer section, but wouldn't it be more suitable to use Past Perfect tense in the first place?
Both actions happened in the past and 'waking up' clearly happened before 'doing the dishes', so why can't we write:
'He had waken up early and cheerfully did the dishes'?

It seems to me that time order should be important in this case and we have to use PPT instead of 2 regular past tense verbs.
Am I wrong?

Thanks in advance!

[RonPurewal]

No. Sequential events are normally in the same tense. (I drove home, changed clothes, ate a snack, and went to the club.)

"Had __ed" is used to indicate that the earlier event had some tangible influence/impact on the later one.
E.g.,

Jim had woken up early, so he decided to take the dogs out to the park.
--> This sentence means that Jim woke up earlier than normal, and so thought, "Hmm, I guess I'll take the dogs out." Note the direct influence here: if he hadn't woken up early, he wouldn't have taken them out.

Jim woke up early and took the dogs out.
--> Two sequential events (e.g., as part of a normal routine).

More importantly,
If you see this kind of difference, look for something else before you worry too much about it. On almost every problem containing a split between these two tenses, I've also seen other, easier, ways to eliminate choices.