Before they will consider a settlement, the striking teachers demand

Before they will consider a settlement, the striking teachers demand that the school board fire the substitute teachers and establishes payment scales guaranteeing cost of living increases.

(B) and to establish payment scales that would guarantee cost of living increases

Subjunctive verb 'demand' requires base form of the verb
such as (a) I request that he write to her (instead of he writes to her)
(b) She asked that they be told immediately (instead of they were told)

Similarly in the above sentence we have "the striking teachers demand that the school board fire the substitute" (Instead of fires). We have a conjunction here 'AND' which means we need to maintain parallelism. Here in this sentence, 'fire' and 'establishes' must be parallel ( Verb base form 'Fire' is parallel to 'Establish').

For Option B - We have 'and to establish', 'to establish' is not parallel to 'fire' ('to' distorts the parallelism). The term 'establish' is parallel to 'fire'.

Only option D satisfies the above. Hence, D

Hope this helps

Hi vikaschanumolu



Because demand and to establish are not parallel.

HTH!

+1 for D.

(A) and establishes payment scales guaranteeing cost of living increases

(B) and to establish payment scales that would guarantee cost of living increases

(C) and establishes payment scales to guarantee cost of living increases

(D) and establish payment scales to guarantee cost of living increases --> Correct, rectifies subjunctive mood error

(E) for establishing payment scales to guarantee cost of living increases

Hence, D.

Before they will consider a settlement, the striking teachers demand that the school board

fire the substitute teachers and
establish payment scales to guarantee cost of living increases.

(D) uses correct Subjunctive and is Parallel, Answer must be (D)

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The striking teachers demand two things that need to be expressed in grammatically parallel structures. The first, not underlined, is that the school board fire substitute teachers. Since this demand is not underlined, and since the second demand will have to parallel it, you know in advance what the structure of the second demand absolutely has to be: that the school board establish payment scales or and [that the school board] establish payment scales. Once you understand the principle of ellipsis you can proceed with confidence: only answer choice (D) uses it correctly. (E) alters the meaning of the original sentence quite dramatically and choices (A), (B), and (C) are not parallel. In order to see that more clearly, try placing that the school board between and and the first verb in each of these choices and you'll see the problem.

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