I’m wondering why this wouldn’t be imperfect? The modifier, ‘lately,’ indicates that there is no specific time that he’s done well, so shouldn’t the answer be alcanzaba???
My non-native explanation is that the preterite is the tense used for relating events, whereas the imperfect is used for descriptions. In this case I also think it’s important that the results are recent, maybe in comparison with how badly he used to perform in the past.
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