To practice road safety, a driver should insist firmly that every pass

Question

To practice road safety, a driver should insist firmly that every  passenger fastens their seatbelt .

A. passenger fastens their seatbelt
B. seatbelt of every passenger be fastened
C. passenger's seatbelt is fastened
D. passenger fasten their seatbelt
E. passenger's seatbelt be fastened

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Sushma1215 · Answer

From the question - " To practice road safety, a driver should   insist   firmly   that   every passenger fastens their seatbelt."

"insist ... that" - indicates/ implies that the sentence is in subjunctive mood. Hence the structure of the sentence should be something like " subject + bossy verb + that + something be done"

Therefore we should look for answer choices which use "something be done".

Based on this we can eliminate answer choices A, C, D.

Answer choice B is also incorrect because it has " passenger " word twice in the sentence.

So, the correct answer is (E). Can someone tell me if my thought process to answer this question is right or wrong.

ZhouBaideng · Answer

can anyone explain why the answer is D? I thought plural pronouns can't be used in case of -one?

cyrwr1 · Answer

Every, is singular??

Please advise.

samkelvin · Answer

how comes D ,subject preceded by each or every needs singular verb form right?

avaniguptaonly · Answer

IMO D 
As fastens is preceeded by Every , therefore it should be Singular .

Experts pls confirm
 Bunuel   kaplan  @E-GMAT

yogesh122 · Answer

Bunuel  pls guide why D is OA. Imo E shd be answer as Subjunctive form in passive form prefer 'be' at the place of helping verb.

gmatstuff123 · Answer

According to the Bloomberg Prep, the correct answer is E, which IMO, makes most sense as the term every needs to be singular.

Ritik25 · Answer

Yeah please update the OE here. According to Bloomberg, its E, not D.

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

To practice road safety, a driver should insist firmly that every  passenger fastens their seatbelt .

A. passenger fastens their seatbelt

This answer choice is grammatically incorrect. The plural pronoun their does not agree with the singular noun passenger.

What helps us identify this question as a Pronoun question as well as identify this mistake is the following Stop Sign:

Any pronoun in the underlined part of the sentence or after the underlined part

Also,  insist  is one of the nine verbs to which the Subjunctive rule applies (if it is followed by  that ). This means that the next verb after  insist that  should be in base form. However,  fastens  is not in base form.

What helps us identify this question as a Subjunctive question as well as identify the mistake is the following Stop Sign:

propose/recommend/require/request/insist/suggest/mandate/ask/demand that

Whenever you come across this Stop Sign, make sure that the following verb is in its base form.

B. seatbelt of every passenger be fastened

Close, so close...

This answer choice corrects both original mistakes and is also stylistically effective.

It corrects the original Pronoun mistake by omitting the pronoun their.

Insist is one of the nine verbs to which the Subjunctive rule applies (if it is followed by that). This means that the next verb after insist that should be in base form. In this answer choice, the base form be is correctly used.

Stylistically, however, it is flawed. The phrase  every seatbelt of every passenger  is wordy and creates redundancy.

C. passenger's seatbelt is fastened

This answer choice corrects one of the original mistakes but repeats the other. It corrects the original subjunctive mistake by using the base form fasten after insist that. However, it repeats the pronoun mistake: the plural pronoun their does not agree with the singular noun passenger.

What helps us identify this mistake is the following Stop Sign:

Any pronoun in the underlined part of the sentence or after the underlined part

What helps us identify this question as a Subjunctive question as well as identify the mistake is the following Stop Sign:

propose/recommend/require/request/insist/suggest/mandate/ask/demand that

Whenever you come across this Stop Sign, make sure that the following verb is in its base form.

D. passenger fasten their seatbelt

This answer choice corrects one of the original mistakes but repeats the other. It corrects the original subjunctive mistake by using the base form fasten after insist that. However, it repeats the pronoun mistake: the plural pronoun their does not agree with the singular noun passenger.

What helps us identify this mistake is the following Stop Sign:

Any pronoun in the underlined part of the sentence or after the underlined part

What helps us identify this mistake is the following Stop Sign:

Any pronoun in the underlined part of the sentence or after the underlined part

E. passenger's seatbelt be fastened

This answer choice corrects both original mistakes and is also stylistically effective.

It corrects the original Pronoun mistake by omitting the pronoun  their .

Insist  is one of the nine verbs to which the Subjunctive rule applies (if it is followed by  that ). This means that the next verb after  insist that  should be in base form. In this answer choice, the base form be is correctly used.

To practice road safety, a driver should insist firmly that every pass

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

To practice road safety, a driver should insist firmly that every pass

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