A financial analyst predicts that the government bailout of a bank

This question tests 2 concepts namely "Will Vs Would" and "Greater vs More"

Concept 1: Bank Loan exposure is countable, hence the greater would be more appropriate

A financial analyst predicts that the government bailout of a bank would fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is more than 40 percent of its total exposure

Concept 2: Now the non-underlined portion of the stem is simple present, hence "will" ie simple future should be used in the conditional sentence

Option D corrects both these errors: will fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is greater than

Can we use 'will' with predicts ? Isn't would better suited ?

A financial analyst predicts that the government bailout of a bank would fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is more than 40 percent of its total exposure

A)would fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is more than (Need simple future tense for prediction)
B)would fall provided the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is more than (Same as A)
C)should fail if the home loan exposure in that bank was greater than (Same as A)
D)will fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is greater than (Correct)
E)will fail if the home loan home loan exposure in that bank were more than (Same as A)

Kudos please if you like my explanation!

A financial analyst predicts that the government bailout of a bank would fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is more than 40 percent of its total exposure

A)would fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is more than
B)would fall provided the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is more than
C)should fail if the home loan exposure in that bank was greater than
D)will fail if the proportion of home loan exposure in that bank is greater than
E)will fail if the home loan home loan exposure in that bank were more than

if then construct

if present tense then present tense/future tense
if past tense then would +verb
only D fits the bill

One extra point
If you are not sure if we should used would with predict or will , there is one more issue on which you can reply to get this one correct.

=> Greater than should be used to compare entities if entities are in percentage.

Option C and D uses that and we know for sure C is incorrect. Hence Option D is correct Choice

Hi sayantanc2k / @egmat/ GMATNinja / VeritasKarishma

in the right option as you said there is a hypothesis, shouldn't we require subjunctive verb rather than as a usual if-else rule?

Please clarify where else we can use subjunctive apart from triggerword+subject+that rule

Subjunctive shows a wish, suggestion, demand, command or hypothetical situation.

Subjunctive is used in hypothetical cases - those which are contrary to reality. (If A were true, B would be true. But this means that A is not actually true)
If I were the President of US, I would ....
Contrary to reality. I am not the president.

In this question, the author has put forward a hypothesis - If A happens, B will happen. This just means that if A happens (certainly a possible case, B will happen)
If I become the President of US, I will ...
This is what will happen if I become the president in the future. This is possible.

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