In one of the most surprising decisions in the history of Wardsville

Hi Ankit,

The action “required” is done by “hundreds of local residents”. They are the ones “who” did the action of requiring something. Therefore, use of “who” is correct in Choice D.

Now take a look at this sentence:

In the mall, I ran into Joe whom I met after three years.

In this sentence, “who” did the action of meeting? “I” did. But “whom” did I meet? I met Joe.

Notice that the subject of the “who” clause in the original sentence is “hundreds of angry residents”, the performer of the action. In the simple example sentence, “Joe” is the object of the main clause while both the actions are performed by "I". That is why he is referred to by “whom”.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Daagh has neatly shared his pointers and Guess we all second him. Will just add my friendly dimes :

Let's draw an analogy :

B : Daagh responded to Thang......... Requesting him to clear the maze

D : Daagh responded to Thang.......... Who requested him to clear the maze

which one would u zone in on ?

Guess D : as it clearly indicates ------ Thang had some problem with the Q ---- Thang requested Daagh to clear the maze -------- And Daagh responded to Thang : The logical flow stays intact

C : Does it at all sound correct ( apart from the fact that +ing modifier Requiring incorrectly modifies the closest noun Residents whereas it should be preceeded by a comma and should be aptly modifying the preceeding clause )

I believe "it" can refer only to the lumber company as the "hundreds of angry residents" is plural

On the hindsight, i think that "required" can only be used because it is and action which preceeded responded so has to be in the past tense.
Hence the option A B C are ruled out, leaving us with D and E and of the two, D is more appropriate.

As a poster has noted above, this seems to be rip-off from an older OG question. However, in the process, the creator of this question curiously changed the correct option D. In the original sentence, it was: who demanded that it (this is a subjunctive construction), while in this question option D is: who required it to (this is a non-subjunctive construction).

Now, require is a funny word. It can take both: subjunctive and non-subjunctive format. But here is the funnier thing. Just because require can take both: subjunctive and non-subjunctive, does not mean that both of these would be correct in any given situation. Let’s look at a couple of correct sentences to understand this further:

1. A plural subject requires a plural verb for a correct sentence.
2. Residents required that the lumber company pay restitution for selling faulty boards.

#1 above is non-subjunctive while #2 is subjunctive. Let us now change # 2 to:

3. Residents required the lumber company to pay restitution for selling faulty boards.

If you look at this closely, this sentence is not optimal, because an illogical meaning that can be interpreted from this is that residents wanted to pay restitution for selling faulty boards, and for this, the residents required the lumber company!! (Think about it this way: Residents required money to pay restitution for selling faulty boards; now just substitute money with the lumber company).

So, in short, the correct sentence is #2 (and not #3), because there is an ambiguity in meaning in #3. At least if there is an option that does have the structure mentioned in #2, it would be preferable.

In this case, while option D in the OG question had a choice similar to #2, this question under consideration changes option D.

This, by the way, also underscores a similar problem in option B of the sentence under consideration (residents did not require the lumber company as B suggests; residents required something from the lumber company).

In fact, test takers would be advised to understand this concept well, since this will become increasingly important, given GMAT’s recent thrust on meaning related questions.

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