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The Coca-Cola Company

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by Vemuri » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:28 am
In one of the most stunning reversals in the history of marketing, the Coca-Cola company in July 1985 yielded to thousands of irate consumers demanding that it should bring back the original Coke formula.

(A) demanding that it should
(B) demanding it to
(C) and their demand to
(D) who demanded that it
(E) who demanded it to

I do not have the OA, but believe [spoiler]D is the right answer as the word demanded indicates subjunctive mood & requires 'that' to follow it.[/spoiler]
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Coca-Cola - Subjunctive Mood

by Jose Ferreira » Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:17 am
This is a great grammatical piece to know, one that is reasonably common on the GMAT.

You are absolutely correct about the subjunctive in this case. Whenever you see a directive verb, in this case "demanded," followed by "that," you need to have just the verb stem.

(Additionally, the pronoun "it" is correct because we know the consumers demanded that the company do something.)

Here are a few simple sentences that follow the pattern of Directive + That + Verb Stem:
I demand that you go to bed.
I require that the students be quiet.
It is mandatory that Greg read four books.

For this reason, the answer should be D.
Jose Ferreira
Founder and CEO, Knewton, Inc.
https://www.knewton.com/gmat
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by tallazndood » Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:20 pm
Jose,

Could you please explain why "who" is used in this case instead of "whom"?

My understanding is that whenever you want to determine the use of "who" vs. "whom", you plug in "he/she" for singular situations and "they/them" for plural situations. In this case, "yielded to thousands of irate consumers" can be reduced to "yielded to thousands of "them", which would require the use "whom" instead of "who".
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by hrishi19884 » Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:44 pm
Jose Ferreira wrote:This is a great grammatical piece to know, one that is reasonably common on the GMAT.

You are absolutely correct about the subjunctive in this case. Whenever you see a directive verb, in this case "demanded," followed by "that," you need to have just the verb stem.

(Additionally, the pronoun "it" is correct because we know the consumers demanded that the company do something.)

Here are a few simple sentences that follow the pattern of Directive + That + Verb Stem:
I demand that you go to bed.
I require that the students be quiet.
It is mandatory that Greg read four books.

For this reason, the answer should be D.
Fantastic explanation Jose :D Kudos to you!!
Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"
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by hrishi19884 » Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:47 pm
tallazndood wrote:Jose,

Could you please explain why "who" is used in this case instead of "whom"?

My understanding is that whenever you want to determine the use of "who" vs. "whom", you plug in "he/she" for singular situations and "they/them" for plural situations. In this case, "yielded to thousands of irate consumers" can be reduced to "yielded to thousands of "them", which would require the use "whom" instead of "who".

You must read this blog

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/10/ ... correction
Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"
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