NorwayGMAT2020 wrote:
Dear GMAT expert - could you by any chance please help by giving a full walkthrough of this question? Conscious that there is a reply here already, but something more detailed would be extremely helpful!!
Q1: could you give any more color on whether the command subjunctive here is correct / incorrect? Answer choice A and B for example.
Q2: Answer choice C vs D. Could you give any more details on why "prohibit that any X is sold" is incorrect in D, but "prohibiting the sale of X" is correct in C? Any other material on this?
Q3: Even though "prohibiting" is the correct answer choice, could you share your viewpoint on, in general, if an "ing-verb" (prohibiting) or "that" as a restrictive clause would be preferred in such a case?
Big thank you!!
Best regards,
NorwayGMAT2020
Hello!
I'm happy to answer these questions!
Q1Command subjunctive is totally appropriate if you're going to use
directive that. Usually if there's a "bossy" or transfer-of-will word (direct, mandate, demand, require, recommend, etc.) followed by a
that, command subjunctive is the appropriate verb mood in the following clause. While I would question whether
directive that is idiomatically correct here, without being sure, I would look for other reasons to eliminate (A) and (B), and I definitely wouldn't eliminate (A) and (B) due to their use of the command subjunctive.
In case it's helpful, I would eliminate (A) on the basis of
prohibited from sale, as it represents a meaning issue: it's the
sale that should be
prohibited or the manufacturers that should be
prohibited from selling the chemical, not the
chemical that should itself be prohibited. I would eliminate (B) on the basis of the misplaced modifier
that was banned on medical grounds in the United States, which for grammatical reasons must appear closer to
chemical, its actual target, to work properly.
Q2Answer (D) has two problems:
1. Prohibiting that is not usually considered idiomatically correct by the GMAT--it strongly prefers some version of prohibit from.
2. Even if it weren't ruled out on idiomatic grounds, prohibit that would still require the command subjunctive, meaning that the is would have to change to be for it to work.
It's important to note that both
prohibit from and the generally incorrect
prohibit that get used when there's a person/entity that's being prohibited
and an action from which that person/entity is being prohibited. For instance, an answer that gave us
...prohibiting manufacturers from selling any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States would be correct. Answer (C) dodges these idiomatic concerns by neither using
that nor including a verb or verbal (such as
selling) that would've required a
from.
Q3I know I answered this obliquely in Q1, but essentially, I'm not totally convinced that
directive that is idiomatically correct.
Direct or
directing that, in which we have a verb/verbal rather than a noun before
that, would be idiomatically acceptable (and would require the command subjunctive afterward). Because
directive is a noun, though, you can use any noun modifier after it (such as the -ing verbal
prohibiting). Practically speaking, though, my policy in dealing with SC questions is to avoid all idiom issues until there's no escape from them. The GMAT is not super consistent about idioms, and even as a native speaker, I don't trust myself to get idioms right all the time, so if I can rely on just about
anything else, I'm happy to take it and ideally avoid the whole idiom issue (which you can almost always do).
I hope that helps!
close
Updated on: 13 Jan 2022, 02:33
So use other ways to eliminate options; try using idiom as a last resort.
