Q133 Last week local shrimpers held a news conference to take some credit for the resurgence of the rare Kemp's ridley turtle, saying that their compliance with laws requiring that turtle-excluder devices be on shrimp nets protect adult sea turtles.

A. requiring that turtle-excluder devices be on shrimp nets protect
B. requiring turtle-excluder devices on shrimp nets is protecting
C. that require turtle-excluder devices on shrimp nets protect
D. to require turtle-excluder devices on shrimp nets are protecting
E. to require turtle-excluder devices on shrimp nets is protecting

Concept tested: SV agreement, Meaning.
Difficulty level: High
Illustration: This question tests a very important aspect of meaning. First, we know that the main verb in the underlined portion “protect” is wrong as the main subject “compliance is singular. (Note that protect is not being used as a command subjunctive in A. “be” is used as the command subjunctive).
According to this logic, A and C are wrong.
Now among B, D and E, “to require” indicates purpose of the law which is not the intended meaning (please refer to the tip below). So, D and E are incorrect. B is the correct answer.

Tip: “Laws to require” indicates purpose of the law, but “laws requiring indicates contents of the law. While this might sound very obvious to natives, but non natives might have to struggle to get this clearly. Consider the following examples. 1. Arms act is passed to discourage random public shootings. Correct 2. Arms act is passed to levy heavy fines on people who carry unlicensed firearm. Wrong. 2 is wrong because the arms act is not issued to levy fines. It is issued to prevent something by levying fines. So the correct option is B.