jade3 wrote:
"Because they consider it important that all of their employees have a clean criminal record, investment banks require each job applicant to undergo a stringent background check"
The problem with the above part of the sentence,IMO, is the idiom “consider”. “consider” cannot be followed by anything.. Even if we think that “it” is a placeholder., “it” will be referring to “that all of their employees”.
So if we remove “it”, the sentence would be “Because they consider that all of their employees….”, which is wrong.
As a rule “consider” cannot be followed by placeholder “it” and “there” .
I hope this helps
jade3, I think you are being a little too strict about the "consider" idiom.
All of the following are correct:
I consider him my friend and mentor.
They consider this task quite difficult.
The government considers non-payment of income tax a crime.
The government considers it a crime to not pay income tax.
The preferred idiom is "consider X Y," where X is a noun (a pronoun is OK!) and Y is a noun or adjective. You just want to avoid "consider X to be Y" or "consider X as Y."
jade3 wrote:
4]It is of some importance that all investment banks’ workers have clean criminal records which is why many of them undergo stringent background checks
“It is of some importance that” is wordy. Hence incorrect
You were right to eliminate this for wordiness (and passive form). But the same wording was in (A), the choice you selected!
RaviChandra wrote:
im unable to explain but here it doesn't require a reference
You are right, "it" is a dummy pronoun here and does not really refer to anything (except maybe the situation in general).
Some other examples:
It was a dark and stormy night when the ship set sail.
It may rain today.
It could be true that...