Multiple choice

Directions: The following question presents a sentence, part of which or all of which is underlined. Beneath the sentence you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original; the other four are different. If you think the original is best, choose the first answer; otherwise choose one of the others.

Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is required either to approve individual state plans for controlling the discharge of wastes into underground water or that they enforce their own plan for states without adequate regulations.

  1. that they enforce their

  2. for enforcing their

  3. they should enforce their

  4. it should enforce its

  5. to enforce its
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
E Correct answer
Explanation

The sentence structure requires parallelism after "either to approve...or to...." The original uses "either to approve...or that they enforce their" which breaks the parallel structure. Option E provides the correct parallel construction: "either to approve...or to enforce its." Additionally, the pronoun "its" correctly refers to the singular "Environmental Protection Agency" rather than the plural "their."

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