In an emergency meeting yesterday, the president of the organization,

This question tests "Subjective Tense" logic

In an emergency meeting yesterday, the president of the organization, demanding that the accused board member resigns immediately, faced a vote of impeachment by the other members.

A. organization, demanding that the accused board member resigns immediately, faced - resigns verb does not go with the subjective mood of sentence

B. organization, demanding that the accused board member resign immediately, or face - demanding is used incorrectly and should be followed by that to convey subjective tone

C. organization demanded that accused board member resigns immediately, facing - facing (verb-ing) modifier is incorrectly used her

D. organization demanded that the accused board member resigns immediately or faces - resigns /faces - do not go with the subjunctive tone

E. organization demanded that the accused board member resign immediately or face - correctly uses subjunctive tone- correct answer

Veritas Prep Official Explanation

In attacking this problem, you should first identify any obvious decision points between the answer choices. The choice between "resign" and "resigns" and between the different forms of "face" at the end are obvious differences. Additionally, you have the choice between "demanding" and "demanded". Probably the clearest decision point is between "demanding" and "demanded" in the start of each choice. Using the participle "demanding" to modify the president does not match the rest of the sentence. In (A) the sentence illogically suggests the president, after demanding something, is himself facing impeachment by the "other members of the board". Even if you think that works logically, the verb "resigns" is incorrect as you will learn shortly. In (B) the "or face" cannot stand alone as the verb for the "president." - you cannot say "the president..or face".

After eliminating (A) and (B), the choice between "resign" and "resigns" is the best place to start (as long as you understand the rule!). Special subjunctive verbs such as the verb "demand" in this sentence - and others including recommend, suggest, mandate, insist, require, etc. - require particular (and often unfamiliar) structures and unusual verb conjugation. In this sentence, the verb “demand” and the participle "demanding" are followed by “that” and this scenario requires an unusual conjugation of the verb(s) that follow. Because this is a common and important structure in the English language, the GMAT expressly tests your knowledge of this verb conjugation. The correct verb form following any subjunctive verb with "that" is the base (or unconjugated) form of the verb. Here are a few examples:

CORRECT I insist that John come to the meeting.
INCORRECT I insist that John comes to the meeting.

CORRECT I demand that students be quiet in class.
INCORRECT I demand that students are quiet in class.

So in this example it must be "the president demanded that the board member resign...or face". (C) and (D) incorrectly use "resigns" so they can be quickly eliminated on this basis. Correct answer is (E).

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.