The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the

Question

Project SC Butler: Day 187 Sentence Correction (SC2) 
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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 .

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors

B) to request more funding from its benefactors

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors

generis · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Project SC Butler: Day 187 Sentence Correction (SC2)

• Split #1 - pronoun/noun disagreement

Group  is a collective noun and it is singular. 
A group of people is singular.
A flock of birds is singular.
A herd of cows is singular.
A murder of crows is singular. (A group of crows is called a "murder.")

The pronoun for singular "group" should be ITS.
Eliminate A, C, and E

• Split #2: Usage of request

The two correct constructions are
Request that X be Yed 
(I requested that my bank funds be released.)

Or
Request ABC from . . .

Optiond D renders the command subjunctive incorrectly

bossy verb (including request) + THAT + subject + bare infinitive

(The infinitive is the whole verb: to be. Drop the word "to." Now you have the bare infinitive,  be

Option D lacks the word "that."
 request      more funding be granted by its benefactors

Eliminate D

by POE, the answer is B; it's correct.

• NOTES

I the sentence is better with "to request," even though I don't think we have problems.
One verb phrase is nested inside another; the subject of both is the group of paleontologists.

The bones do not make it possible for the group (1) to continue the group's work and (2) to request money from benefactors.
I agree with posters who note that the phrasing is strange.
I would have to mine OG questions before I could make this call.

But compare A, C, and E, on one hand , to B and D on the other hand.
The repetition of "to" makes it clear that "to request more funds" belongs to the group of paleontologists.

COMMENTS

Enkhhulan  , welcome to SC Butler.

I am glad to see a few of your whom I haven't seen in awhile. 
Finally, the core group of posters is always good to see.

Most of these answers are very good. I can't add much to them. Nice work!

firas92 · Answer

A) request that more funding be granted by their benefactors
 "Group" is singular and so "their" brings in Subject-Verb disagreement

B) to request more funding from its benefactors
 Correct

C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors
 "Group" is singular and so "their" brings in Subject-Verb disagreement

D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors
 "Funding be granted" is ambiguous and incorrect. "Funding" alone conveys the meaning sufficiently.
Moreover a "that" is required to use the subjunctive mood "be granted".

E) to request additional funding from their benefactors
 "Group" is singular and so "their" brings in Subject-Verb disagreement

Answer is  (B)

sampriya · Answer

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!!

exc4libur · Answer

MEANING
Recently discovered fossils provide justification for the group   to continue its study and to request more funding from its   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)

Abhishekrao12 · Answer

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)

Shishou · Answer

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

Raxit85 · Answer

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
C) submit a request for more funding from their benefactors
D) request more funding be granted by its benefactors

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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mykrasovski · Answer

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

suchithra · Answer

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

TheNightKing · Answer

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

eakabuah · Answer

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 reques t  additional funding from  their  benefactors.

KhulanE · Answer

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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warrior1991 · Answer

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.

generis · Answer

The official explanation is posted  here

The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The recently discovered dinosaur fossils provide justification for the

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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