The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the

The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and request that more funding be granted by their benefactors.

their illogically refers to "the group of paleontologists" - eliminate A/C and E

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors- wrong!

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors- wrong!

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors-wrong!

explanation for A/C and E : - their illogically refers to "a group"

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors- wrong!
to+ verbs do not take subjunctive mood


B) to request more funding from its benefactors- Correct!!

MEANING
Recently discovered fossils provide justification for the group [sing] to continue its study and to request more funding from its [sing] benefactors.

A) "to continue… and request" not parallel; "their" plural, we need singular, sva;
C) "to continue…submit a request" not parallel; also, imps the other justification was to "submit a request" which is different from "request more funding"; "their" plural, we need singular, sva;
D) "to continue… and request" not parallel; "request more funding be granted" nonsense;
E) "their" plural, we need singular, sva;

Answer (B)

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors
E) to request additional funding from their benefactors
C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors

All options can be eliminated because of the use of their pronoun which refers to the group ( which is singular ).

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors

request that construction is required for usage of the command subjunctive verb 'be granted'.

B) to request more funding from its benefactors

Correct answer : (B)

The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and request that more funding be granted by their benefactors.


we have a 3-2 split here: its v their
the group is a collective singular noun and should use it rather than their.
The un-underlined part gives us a clue by using its for the group.
A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors
their is not the right pronoun

B) to request more funding from its benefactors
uses the right pronoun for the group

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors
their is not the right pronoun for the group

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors
in trying to use the command subjunctive,this sentence omits "that"

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors
their is not the right pronoun for the group

Answer is B

Imo. B

The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and request that more funding be granted by their benefactors.

Meaning: The recently discovered DF provide justification for some group of people to do X and (to, optional if both action refers to same subject) Y.

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors -pronoun error, their refers to singular noun, group of people. Faulty parallelism, phrase and clause, clause have subjunctive verb structure, which is also wrong.

B) to request more funding from its benefactors - seems OK, but funds would be better than funding. Hold it.

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors - pronoun error, their refers to singular noun, group of people.

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors - the same error as option A

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors - pronoun error, their refers to singular noun, group of people.

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Quick read through reveals that the sentence is testing parallelism and meaning. Simplified, the sentence looks as follows: "Fossils provide justification for the group of people to continue doing smth and (to) request funding from someone / somewhere ... " We need to establish proper parallelism to make the sentence correct: "to continue and to request". Let's analyze the answer choices.

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors
Looks probably okay? The options employs command subjunctive (Mike demands that Peter leave the room right now). But the option incorrectly uses pronoun "their". The sentence infers that the group of paleontologists has benefactors. So, pronoun "its" should be referring to the group of people.

B) to request more funding from its benefactors
Parallelism is maintained in this case. And pronoun its correctly refers to the group of scientists, which has benefactors.

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors
Submit a request is longer than just request, but the real trouble comes from the pronoun their.

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors
The usage of pronoun its is incorrect. The sentence logically should refer to the benefactors of fossils.

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors
Missing antecedent for theirs. Note : pronoun cannot refer to a part of the noun phrase.
Both Request that and Request X Y are correct usages.

B) to request more funding from its benefactors
Correct

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors
Same as A

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors
verb in the form of be without that is not correct

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors
Same as A

therefore answer is B

Process of Elimination:

The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study
and
The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to request ______

We need "to request" in order to maintain Parallelism and the intended meaning.

So Only B and E survive this filter.


Let's check out the differences. One really should not pick between "more funding" and "additional funding". There can be no justified explanation of picking one over the other in this case. That means we have to pick between "its benefactors" vs "their benefactors".

Since we are referring back to the "group" of paleontologists we need to use singular and hence B is the right answer.

Other Errors

The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and request that more funding be granted by their benefactors.

Meaning: Dinosaur fossils have recently been discovered. This discovery provides a justification for the group of paleontologists: 1. to continue its study 2. to request for additional funding.

Split#1: its vs their
Split#2: request politely vs request as a command
Split#3: Parellelism

Split#1: The logical antecedent for its/their in the underlined portion of the sentence is the group of paleontologists. The group of paleontologists is singular, hence a singular pronoun is appropriate. Based on this, we can eliminate options A, C, and E.

Split#2: From the meaning of the sentence it is more logical for the usage of request to be polite rather than as a command. Based on this, it is not appropriate to use the command subjunctive structure. Options A and D utilize the command subjunctive, although only option A's usage is correct. Luckily for me, option A has a pronoun error, which made my life very easy. We can, therefore, eliminate option D.

Split#3: Is there a parallelism error in the options? I did not find any. However, I stand to be corrected. In option A, to continue is rightly parallel to request. For infinitive parallelism, to can be omitted after and in front of the second verb. to + verb is only required when the parallelism is already set off before the first infinitive. Based on this, all the other options are rightly parallel.

The right answer is, therefore, option B.

Option A: The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and request that more funding be granted by their benefactors.

Option B: The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and to request more funding from its benefactors.

Option C: The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and submit a request for more funding from their benefactors.

Option D: The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and request [that] more funding be granted by its benefactors.

Option E: The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the group of paleontologists to continue its present course of study and to request additional funding from their benefactors.

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors
Wrong
1. Wrong parallelism: it looks like "Request" is parallel with "provide", which is logically wrong. Fossils cannot request. Subjects of the verb "request" should be paleontologists
2 wrong usage of that: if that is used in this sentence there should be independent clause after "that".

B) to request more funding from its benefactors
Correct
"To request" is correctly paralleled to " to continue". And "it's" refered the subject "the group" correctly.

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors
Wrong
1. Wrong parallelism: same mistake with answer A.
2. Wrong pronoun usage: subject of "their" pronoun should be "group". Collective noun is a singular noun, so instead of their, its should be used.

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors
Wrong
1. Wrong parallelism: same miskate with answer A
2. More funding be granted by it's benefactors: ambiguous

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors
Wrong
1. "Their" pronoun should refers plural subject. But "group" is singular noun so 'its' is correct.

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In all the above option 'their' is used . It does not follow the singular/plural pronoun rule. Hence all the choices above are incorrect.



There is no need of Subjunctive here. Request is not a command subjunctive mood. Hence incorrect.

'to Continue' and 'to request' are both parallel and hence is a correct choice. Also the pronoun its is used correctly.

The official explanation is posted here