The budget for education refelects the administration's

[Luci]

More or less the same with this one. This is again difficult English for non native. I dont understand the sentence. It is not that I dont understand the words, it is the meaning of the sentence what drives me mad.





Colud we refrase it something like this?

The budget for education reflects the administration´s demand about the money which is controled by local school distrits and that can only be spent on.......

I chose D because it is not clear what the pronoun "It" in the second part of the sentence is refering to. So the options were B and D. I didn´t understand the first part of the sentence, so I guess that my mistakes was there. I chose D and the correct answer was B.

Any help?

Thanks

Luci

[givemeanid]

'demand that' requires subjunctive verb tense. That means 'verb' followed by the infinitive form without 'to'. The only choice with the subjunctive is B. 'demand that X be Y'.

[dbernst]

givemeanid, that is exactly correct! Luci, this subjunctive form is probably not familiar to a nonnative English speaker, but here is a brief synopsis.

In modern American English, the Simple Present Subjunctive is used in clauses beginning with the word that that express formal commands or requests. This construction requires the "bare infinitive," or the infinitive of the verb without the word "to."

This explains the need for demand that the money be in the correct answer choice: demand (expresses command) that (introduction to clause) the money (subject) be (bare infinitive).

-dan

[ksc311]

is the pronoun 'it' ambiguous in all the choices?

also, are there any other errors in the other choices besides the subjunctive?

[RonPurewal]

if you want further comments on this question, please post the TEXT of the question, along with the text of all the answer choices, into the forum thread. please do not use image hosting for verbal questions.

thank you.

[Guest]

The budget for education reflects the administration's demand that the money is controlled by local school districts, but it can only be spent on teachers, not on books, computers, or other materials or activities.
A. the money is controlled by local school districts, but it can only be spent
B. the money be controlled by local school districts, but it allows them to spend the money only
C. the money is to be controlled by local school districts, but allowing it only to be spent
D. local school districts are in control of the money, but it allows them to spend the money only
E. local school districts are to be in control of the money, but it can only spend it


A. the money is controlled ..., but it can, it refers to the money. looks good
B. the money be controlled ..., but it allows them , it refers to the money . not right
D. if the choice is"local school districts be in control of the money, but it allows them",is it right?


thanks

[JonathanSchneider]

Yes, that would be a correct rephrasing of D. When we have a verb that expresses intent/desire, we have two options: the infinitive, or the word "that" plus the subjunctive. This rephrasing would use one of each (not breaking parallelism because you have two separate verbs that begin these clauses).

[nayak.purnendu]

Hi Instructors,

I have a small doubt. Can you please help me ?

It was clear that non-underlined portion that this sentence was testing present subjunctive verb.
"demand that" + infinitive ( without "to" )
Eg. The attorney proposed that the session BE adjourned until the following day.

But, the object pronoun "them" in the underlined portion should refer back to the administration. Correct?

My understanding:
Possessive pronouns can only refer back to possessive nouns. However, subject and object pronouns CANNOT refer to possessive nouns. Therefore the object pronoun "them" is used incorrectly to refer back to administration's.


Please correct me.

[rohit21384]

Hi Instructors,

I have a small doubt. Can you please help me ?

It was clear that non-underlined portion that this sentence was testing present subjunctive verb.
"demand that" + infinitive ( without "to" )
Eg. The attorney proposed that the session BE adjourned until the following day.

But, the object pronoun "them" in the underlined portion should refer back to the administration. Correct?

My understanding:
Possessive pronouns can only refer back to possessive nouns. However, subject and object pronouns CANNOT refer to possessive nouns. Therefore the object pronoun "them" is used incorrectly to refer back to administration's.


Please correct me.

1)
The budget for education reflects the administration's demand that .......................................on teachers, not on books, computers, or other materials or activities.

B. the money be controlled by local school districts, but it allows them to spend the money only

In 2nd main clause starting with but - subject prounoun "it" refers to subject "budget" in previous clause. "Them" object pronoun refers to "school district" object of relative clause starting with the "that the ....."

pronoun and the antecedent agree in case and number.

Also note that possessive pronoun may refer to non possesive nouns.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Instructors,

I have a small doubt. Can you please help me ?

It was clear that non-underlined portion that this sentence was testing present subjunctive verb.
"demand that" + infinitive ( without "to" )
Eg. The attorney proposed that the session BE adjourned until the following day.

But, the object pronoun "them" in the underlined portion should refer back to the administration. Correct?

My understanding:
Possessive pronouns can only refer back to possessive nouns. However, subject and object pronouns CANNOT refer to possessive nouns. Therefore the object pronoun "them" is used incorrectly to refer back to administration's.


Please correct me.

1)
The budget for education reflects the administration's demand that .......................................on teachers, not on books, computers, or other materials or activities.

B. the money be controlled by local school districts, but it allows them to spend the money only

In 2nd main clause starting with but - subject prounoun "it" refers to subject "budget" in previous clause. "Them" object pronoun refers to "school district" object of relative clause starting with the "that the ....."

pronoun and the antecedent agree in case and number.

Also note that possessive pronoun may refer to non possesive nouns.

well done.

[benbenr]

I get in grammar "it" refers to "budget" but i don't get the meaning of the whole sentence. When we use B, the sentence reads as follow:

"The budget for education reflects the administration's demand that the money be controlled by local school districts, but it allows them to spend the money on teachers, not on books, computers, or other materials or activities."

how can the budget "allows the local school districts to spend the money"? can you help? Thanks!!!

Hi Instructors,

I have a small doubt. Can you please help me ?

It was clear that non-underlined portion that this sentence was testing present subjunctive verb.
"demand that" + infinitive ( without "to" )
Eg. The attorney proposed that the session BE adjourned until the following day.

But, the object pronoun "them" in the underlined portion should refer back to the administration. Correct?

My understanding:
Possessive pronouns can only refer back to possessive nouns. However, subject and object pronouns CANNOT refer to possessive nouns. Therefore the object pronoun "them" is used incorrectly to refer back to administration's.


Please correct me.

1)
The budget for education reflects the administration's demand that .......................................on teachers, not on books, computers, or other materials or activities.

B. the money be controlled by local school districts, but it allows them to spend the money only

In 2nd main clause starting with but - subject prounoun "it" refers to subject "budget" in previous clause. "Them" object pronoun refers to "school district" object of relative clause starting with the "that the ....."

pronoun and the antecedent agree in case and number.

Also note that possessive pronoun may refer to non possesive nouns.

well done.

[RonPurewal]

I get in grammar "it" refers to "budget" but i don't get the meaning of the whole sentence. When we use B, the sentence reads as follow:

"The budget for education reflects the administration's demand that the money be controlled by local school districts, but it allows them to spend the money on teachers, not on books, computers, or other materials or activities."

how can the budget "allows the local school districts to spend the money"? can you help? Thanks!!!

this is well within the meaning of "budget".
a budget is a plan or set of rules that dictates how money (or another resource, such as water or fuel) is spent. as such, it can allow, or disallow, specific expenditures.

what do you think is wrong here? this is actually a pretty common usage:
my budget won't allow me to purchase these gourmet foods.
etc.

[benbenr]

got it. thanks!

[RonPurewal]

got it. thanks!

glad it helped

[aneetha.sampath]

I am confused with the usage of Subjunctive here

Ron, in one of the posts explained that "If you are proposing a hypothesis of how something that happens/happened then, you don't use subjunctive"
eg:The Senator proposed that more tax money goes to the social program than to the miltitary

In similar lines,
The budget for education reflects the administration's demand that the money is controlled by local school districts, but it can only be spent on teachers, not on books, computers, or other materials or activities.

My question here is that does the above sentence follow the subjunctive pattern?