My reasons for selecting C over A are:

1. option A and B are using subjunctive mood. I don't think we should use subjunctive mood here, since the option is just explaining or narrating what President Carter’s directive was. Its not that President Carter is giving his direction now itself.

2. In option C, "prohibiting" is correctly modifying "President Carter’s directive" since there is no comma.
Introduction of comma here would create ambiguity, as in that case "prohibiting" would be modifying either "President Carter’s directive" or "Ronald Reagan’s first acts"
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IMO C.

I think, use of "that" here is incorrect. Here "any chemical banned on...." is modifying "directive". This modifier can be placed directly "directly prohibiting the sale...."
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Guys found the below at http://gmattoughies.blogspot.com/

Participle Modifier (w/ and w/o comma)
If the comma is not there, the participial modifier must modify whatever noun directly precedes it. If the comma is there, then the participial modifier is taken to modify the preceding clause as a whole (or particularly the verb of that clause).
to wit:
tom received the court order [NO COMMA] restricting his movements outside the city --> the court order itself restricts tom's movements. we can infer that tom's movements are already restricted by the court order, regardless of whether he has received it.
tom received the court order, restricting his movements outside the city --> tom's movements were not restricted until he received the order.

by the way, the second of these sentences isn't that great: tom is the subject of that sentence, so the modifier implies that tom restricted his own movements by receiving the order. to convey the meaning more precisely, you'd say something like tom received the court order, thus activating orbringing into effect restrictions on...'


Ex: One of Ronald Reagan’s first acts as President was to rescind President Carter’s directivethat any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States be prohibited from sale to other countries.
(A) that any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States be prohibited from sale to other countries
(B) that any chemical be prohibited from sale to other countries that was banned on medical grounds in the United States
(C) prohibiting the sale to other countries of any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States
(D) prohibiting that any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States is sold to other countries
(E) that any chemical banned in the United States on medical grounds is prohibited from being sold to other countries


Ans C

I would go with A.

C's construction looks awkward.

In option C,
prohibiting the sale of any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States to other countries would have been better than prohibiting the sale to other countries of any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States.

i can not quite agree with the OA.
Can someone give a clear explanation? Thanks!

OA according to Brutal SCs is C.
But its hard to between A and C. Can someone elaborate

I think it should be other way around: with comma it will modify the 'act' not without the comma.
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Consider kudos for the good post ...
My debrief : journey-670-to-720-q50-v36-long-85083.html

it is tough ...
I can eliminate C for misplaced 'chemical' .."sale to other countries of any chemical banned "

here "of any chemical banned " should be closer to "sale" ..it should read something like this
"sale of any chemical banned to other countries ..."

but I have questions in A as well though ..

prohibit from X is correct idiom but here 'X' is noun right? "prohibit from sale " is n't 'sale' verb here?

If I have to, I choose A ..

is this a tough question or a not well composed question?

tom received the court order [NO COMMA] restricting his movements outside the city
tom received the court order that restricted his movement outside the city ( i guess sentence must be originally like this ) so if v want to make it shrter then v'll write it like first sentence . instead of ed verb form v'll use restricting...
but the sentence here it is different coz directive is definately subjunctive but the carter's directive was of the past .... subjunctive is generally i guess for future ...... so subjunctive doent apply here so thats why ans is c ....

A - Subjunctive is used here. Incorrect.
B - Seems that "banned" describes countries. Also, "was" is ambigous or simply wrong. Also, see A above.
C - Correct.
D - The second word, "that," is excessive.
E - "Is . . . being" sounds terrible. Also, see A above.

I agree with Bigoyal; subjunctive mood is used for options A, B, and E. We can use -ing words to directly describe nouns:

The man standing on the porch.
The car passing the store.
The star ship floating in outer space.

This question was quite nasty!
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