The recently reelected president of Cyprus has asked that

Question

The recently reelected president of Cyprus has asked  that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their   northern regions, to withdraw from his country.

(A) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
(B) of the United States that it would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
(C) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its
(D) that the United States encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
(E) the United States to encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its

daagh · Answer

There is simply no locus standi for the plural pronoun ‘their’ in this problem. So the choice falls between C and E. Choice C stats with the command subjective but skids on the verb of the subordinate clause by using the indicative mood “would encourage”, rather than the subjunctive” encourage” 
On the contrary E uses the infinitive mood with the infinitive marker “to” (not the preposition to) and gives grammatical sanctity to the clause.

Carcass · Answer

But i'm not completely sure of that in fron of THE is wrong ??

Then C and D are wrong for other reasons but  that   the  is not ackward per se ?'

what do you think daagh ????

pqhai · Answer

IMO, E is correct. 
"their" used in A, B, D is wrong ==> because "the island" should go with "its"
Down to C and E.

(C) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its
  Wrong.

(1) Because of "that" ==>  subjunctive for  ==> "would" is used incorrect. The subjunctive formula is:   verb in simple form  ]  ==> C will be correct if "would" is eliminated. ==> C will be: X has asked that Y  would  encourage Z... to withdraw.

(2) C also  changes meaning . The original meaning is like a command: X has asked Y to do ...... ==> "would encourage" is not appropriate

(E) the United States to encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its
  Correct.   This is command sentence: X has asked Y to encourage Z.... to withdraw......

blueseas · Answer

hi,
clearly as everybody said the use of their is wrong........and "its" is required to refer to united states as per the meaning,and united states is singular.

now we are left with C and E

(C) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its
In this option meaning comes out to be wrong.....it is like this:....the president asked that the united states would encourage......now here it is not clear to whom the president is asking?....but the intended meaning is president of cyprus asked the united states to encourage........
thats why this is wrong ....also as per daagh explanation : subjunctive form dont contain would or should.

therefore E becomes the right answer....

hope it helps.

SKM

daagh · Answer

@Carcass

Subjunctive mood sentences are somewhat unusual in that they do not follow normal rules of grammar related to subject-verb and tense usage. Therefore, no woder taht they appear some what weird to the ears. But still they are grammatical.

Bluelagoon · Answer

Subject - Verb issue corners the option between C and E. Now C sounds that the president asked a 3rd entity to request US to intervene.However the sentence doesn't have a 3rd entity such as UN or UNESCO or some other organization hence it's out. E is clear ans concise in meaning and grammar. hence E.

rrkan · Answer

I have a doubt.

If "D" has 'its" at the end would "D" be the answer for this

blueseas · Answer

Yes rrkan if the option D has "its" ==> in this case option D will be correct.
since ASK can take both subjunctive verb and to - verb.

hope it helps.

arpanpatnaik · Answer

The option   gives a parallel infinitive form of the verb in both the parts of the sentence i.e. "to encourage Turkey" and "to withdraw from", which no other choice provides. I believe that plays an imp factor in the choices as well and can be easily detected.

Please correct me if I am wrong!

Regards,
A

blueseas · Answer

hi ,
i got your point what you are thinking but in my opinion thats not the error i think.
whenever there is parallelism there must be a parallelism marker such as....and/or...etc.

now in the given sentence

The recently reelected president of Cyprus has asked that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their northern regions, to withdraw from his country.

(A) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
(B) of the United States that it would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
(C) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its
(D) that the United States encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
(E) the United States to encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its

The part starting with ..."which invaded........northern regions" is actually acting as modifier and is modifying turkey.
now if remove the modifier the sentence becomes
"The recently reelected president of Cyprus has asked that the United States to encourage Turkey to withdraw from his country.
now in this sentence between TO ENCOURAGE and TO WITHDRAW....there is no parallelism marker so as per my opinion it is not necessary to make them parallel and that is not the basis to eliminate.

hope it helps.

SKM

Zarrolou · Answer

Hi arpanpatnaik, that expression is not a form of parallelism.

Parallelism is used to express "  parallel ideas  " so "to encourage Turkey to withdraw from" is not Parallelism just because both have "to + VERB".

Example:
 The US president in his last speech encourage Turkey to withdraw from the war, and to open its internal market to the world.

Here the speed encourages Turkey to do two things and those must be parallel
 *to withdraw (...) 
 *to open (...)

In the above example "to encourage Turkey to withdraw" is not Parallelism, hope it's clear

And shaileshmishra correctly points out that parallelism is often marked by words such as "and, Both X and Y, or"

arpanpatnaik · Answer

Ohh I am sorry I think my post was misleading. Actually by parallel i meant the structures of both the parts i.e.
to encourage Turkey
to withdraw...

are in agreement. They are both in 'Infinitive Form'. All the other choices, do not offer that option. My objective was never to question the idea movement, I was just referring to those structures(form of the verb) being similar or parallel

The structure agreement is what strikes instantaneously when you see the choices and can be used to determine the answer a lot faster

Regards,
Arpan

The structure agreement is what strikes instantaneously when you see the choices and can be used to determine the answer a lot faster

Regards, Arpan

Zarrolou · Answer

Those verbs could be similar, but NOT parallel. By itself this is not a good point to discard/accept an option

arpanpatnaik · Answer

My bad! I thought that it was a valid approach

Well I guess as mentioned in the previous posts, considering the use of plural pronoun 'their' is the distinguishing factor, and as ' pqhai ' has elaborated in his post can be eliminated as well! Thanks Zarrolou!

*Shailesh too!

* Regards, A

Abhishek009 · Answer

Their has no clear referrent, and between (C) & (E) , correct answer must be (E) for the highlighted errors in the options...

soumya2504 · Answer

E, because it is concise and correct idioms

chesstitans · Answer

but the pronoun "it" is quite ambiguous, pls elaborate your answer.

soumya2504 · Answer

(A) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
 would is incorrect 
(B) of the United States that it would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
 ask of is incorrect 
(C) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its
 same as A 
(D) that the United States encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their
 their isn't correct antecedent to turkey as it's singular 
(E) the United States to encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its
 Correct

Bunuel · Answer

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The phrase asked that in choices (A), (C), and (D) requires the following verb to be in the subjunctive mood which, in situations like this (technically known as indirect speech), looks like the infinitive form of the verb. The options in the three choices are would encourage and encourage. The second is correct since encourage is indeed the infinitive form of the verb (to encourage). Eliminate (A) and (C). Answer choice (B) makes the same error. Even though it separates asked and that with some more information, (B) still presents the asked that construction and needs to use the subjunctive encourage rather than would encourage. (D) and (E) remain. (E) is correct because it uses its rather than their to refer to Cyprus.

An 800 test taker realizes that he doesn't need to know all of the details of the subjunctive mood in order to ace the GMAT. He familiarizes himself with the three situations in which the subjunctive is used so that he can spot them in Sentence Correction questions.

The recently reelected president of Cyprus has asked that

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The recently reelected president of Cyprus has asked that

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