KC
Though the law will require emissions testing of all diesel vehicles, from tractor trailers to excursion buses, it will have no effect on sport utility vehicles, almost all of which are gasoline powered, and will not be subjected to emissions-control standards as stringent as they are for diesel-powered vehicles.
A. powered, and will not be subjected to emissions-control standards as stringent as they are for
B. powered, and therefore not subjected to emissions-control standards that are as stringent as those of
C. powered and therefore not subject to emissions-control standards as stringent as those for
D. powered, which are not subject to emissions-control standards as stringent as they are for
E. powered and therefore they are not subject to emissions-control standards as stringent as those of
This question is based on Idiomatic Usage and Construction.
The options give us a choice between the expressions ‘those of’ and ‘those for’. The demonstrative pronoun ‘those’ refers to emissions-control standards. The appropriate expression is
standards for something and not standards of something.
Options B and E end in ‘those of’, so they can be eliminated.
In Option D, the antecedent of the relative pronoun ‘which’ is not clear. If the antecedent of the relative pronoun is “sport utility vehicles”, the conjunction ‘and’ is required before the relative pronoun to signify that the two modifiers describe the vehicles. The sentence should be thus - it will have no effect on sport utility vehicles,
almost all of which are gasoline powered,
and which are not subject to emissions-control standards as stringent as they are for. The pronoun 'they' is not appropriate as the standards referred to in the sentence are two different ones. So,
Option D can be eliminated.
The personal pronoun ‘they’ in Option A cannot validly refer to ‘emissions-control standards’ as there is meant to be a comparison between emissions-control standards for two different types of vehicles. The more appropriate pronoun would be the demonstrative pronoun ‘those’, which would refer to the noun ‘emissions-control standards for diesel powered vehicles’. The verb “will not be subjected” changes the meaning of the sentence as the intended meaning is not a prediction about gasoline powered vehicles. So,
Option A can also be eliminated.
Option C conveys the intended meaning. It contains the appropriate idiomatic and pronoun usage - those for. Parallelism is maintained in the description of gasoline powered sport utility vehicles; the participle and the adjective – gasoline powered and subject describe the vehicles.
Therefore, C is the most appropriate option.Jayanthi Kumar.