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.

The Senate approved immigration legislation that would grant permanent residency to millions of aliens currently residing here and if employers hired illegal aliens they would be penalized.

  1. if employers hired illegal aliens they would be penalized

  2. hiring illegal aliens would be a penalty for employers

  3. penalize employers who hire illegal aliens

  4. penalizing employers hiring illegal aliens

  5. employers to be penalized for hiring illegal aliens
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The sentence has two parallel elements: 'grant permanent residency' and 'penalize employers.' Both are infinitive verbs following 'would.' Option C 'penalize employers who hire illegal aliens' correctly maintains this parallel structure with the infinitive form 'penalize.' Options A, B, D, and E break parallelism or use incorrect grammatical structures.

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