Couple things I have noticed:

1. Subjunctive mood: agree "that" is necessary.
2. The non-underlined portion states "and that immediate...", thus whatever comes before it should demonstrate parallelism with a that-clause.

Hi all!

'that' is necessary on account of sentence structure. We want the clauses to be parallel.

" ... that ..., and that ..."

We should eliminate answers B and E.
Answer C changes the original meaning and is illogical( skip the filler).

"Agreement exists among professional sports leagues that,... and that ..., there is no consensus on the best course of action"

There is the contrast between the two main clauses. Therefore, we need conjunction here that puts emphasis on the contrast.

Answer D seems wrong to me, because of wrong use of 'despite'. 'Despite' is usually followed by gerund, pronoun or noun.
For example:
Teddy Roosevelt went on to be President of the United States despite loss of an eye.
Despite falling off the tree, she suffered no significant injury.
Despite her pain, she chose life.

So, I would also choose A.

Should you find any errors in my reasoning, please post here. Thanks!

Hope it helps!
Best,
Maciek

thanks guys. seems a easy one that I missed. so no need to worry about though vs although right?

Quick difference between A and E. If you choose E then it changes the intended meaning. A uses word 'may', E does not use that word and say that 'leagues agree'.

As per original sentence there is possibility of agreement but not agreed.

As per E leagues have already agreed.

Hey guys,

It seems like you're all on the same (and correct!) page here, but I saw the title of the post and had to chime in. Just looking at the title, "even though vs. although", I knew before looking at the sentence that that difference would be a smokescreen.

Before you consider idiomatic differences (although vs. even though; instead of vs. rather than; etc.), try to find major, recurring themes (subject-verb agreement, sentence structure, etc.), as those are much easier decisions to make, and overwhelmingly they'll allow you to avoid making those "which sounds better" decisions that are much lower percentage for you.

Here, it comes down to the fact that the sentence requires "that" - Leagues may agree THAT (to set up a new subject of a new clause) steroid use...

Go for the higher-percentage decisions first that you know you're responsible for, and save the tedious, obscure decisions for later!

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Hey guys,

It seems like you're all on the same (and correct!) page here, but I saw the title of the post and had to chime in. Just looking at the title, "even though vs. although", I knew before looking at the sentence that that difference would be a smokescreen.

Before you consider idiomatic differences (although vs. even though; instead of vs. rather than; etc.), try to find major, recurring themes (subject-verb agreement, sentence structure, etc.), as those are much easier decisions to make, and overwhelmingly they'll allow you to avoid making those "which sounds better" decisions that are much lower percentage for you.

Here, it comes down to the fact that the sentence requires "that" - Leagues may agree THAT (to set up a new subject of a new clause) steroid use...

Go for the higher-percentage decisions first that you know you're responsible for, and save the tedious, obscure decisions for later!

That is actually a very very good point Brian. I have noticed that sometimes we start by looking for small things and completely ignore the obvious ones.

I think all of us would greatly appreciate it if you list maybe 5-6 topics, in order, that we should follow through while looking for errors or the most common ones. And IF the question cannot be answered with those 5-6 steps, then look into details.

Thank you!