Hello Everyone!
Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! To start, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in
orange:
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 protectingAfter a quick glance over the options, there are a couple places we can focus on:
1. requiring / require (Idioms)
2. protect / is protecting / are protecting (Subject-Verb Agreement)Let's start off with #2 on our list: subject-verb agreement. No matter which way we go with this, it will eliminate at least 2 options rather quickly. The first thing we need to do is figure out what the subject is:
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.Now that we know the verb needs to work with the singular subject "compliance," we can rule out any options that don't agree:
(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 protectingWe can eliminate options A, C, & D because their verbs are plural, and they don't agree with their singular subject! See - how easy was that?
Now let's go back to #1 on our list: to require / requiring. This is an issue of idioms! By using the wrong idiom here, it actually changes the overall meaning:
(B)
requiring turtle-excluder devices on shrimp nets
is protectingThis is
CORRECT! It's idiomatically correct to say that "laws requiring X" here. It's clear that the law currently requires these changes to be made already. It also uses proper subject-verb agreement (compliance / is protecting).
(E)
to require turtle-excluder devices on shrimp nets
is protectingThis is
INCORRECT because the phrase "laws to require X" isn't idiomatically correct in English. It also changes the meaning somewhat - the law that exists today will require people to use turtle-excluder devices in the future? That doesn't really make sense with how laws work. Laws require actions to be taken immediately - not in the future.
There you have it - option B is the correct choice! If we focus on the major differences between the options, we can eliminate the wrong options quickly to get to the right one!
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