Sentence Correction

One of Ronald Reagan's first acts as President was to rescind President Carter's directive that any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States be prohibited from sale to other countries.

(A) that any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States be prohibited from sale to other countries

(B) that any chemical be prohibited from sale to other countries that was banned on medical grounds in the United States

(C) prohibiting the sale to other countries of any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States

(D) prohibiting that any chemical banned on medical grounds in the United States is sold to other countries

(E) that any chemical banned in the United States on medical grounds is prohibited from being sold to other countries

Why A, D & E are wrong?

Can anyone please help me in this problem.

vishalwin wrote:Why A, D & E are wrong?

To prohibit basically means to hinder or forbid. Generally what is prohibited is an action.

So smoking is prohibited basically means smoking is forbidden.

So the meanings conveyed via A, D and E are nonsensical. Substitute a form of forbid for prohibit to see how.


A) any chemical banned on medical grounds be forbidden from sale

So the chemical is being forbidden from sale? What does that mean?

D) directive forbidding that any chemical banned is sold

Once again this is totally convoluted and nonsensical.

E) any chemical is forbidden from being sold

What does forbidden from being sold mean??

We could forbid, hinder, or prohibit the sale of a chemical.

Selling of a chemical can be forbidden or prohibited.

So C works.

Using C, we get Carter's directive prohibiting the sale of any chemical banned on medical grounds.

What kind of directive was it? It was a directive prohibiting the sale of any chemical banned on medical grounds.

Marty Murray wrote: E) any chemical is forbidden from being sold

What does forbidden from being sold mean??

We could forbid, hinder, or prohibit the sale of a chemical.

Selling of a chemical can be forbidden or prohibited.

"forbidden from being sold".......doesn't this means prohibit from sale?


Also, option B has same same issue as it is with the options A & D....right?

vishalwin wrote:

Marty Murray wrote: E) any chemical is forbidden from being sold

What does forbidden from being sold mean??

We could forbid, hinder, or prohibit the sale of a chemical.

Selling of a chemical can be forbidden or prohibited.

"forbidden from being sold".......doesn't this means prohibit from sale?


Also, option B has same same issue as it is with the options A & D....right?

Prohibit from sale is actually meaningless also.

One does not prohibit from sale. One prohibits the sale or prohibits selling.

They prohibited from sale. is kind of like He hit from the baseball., or She bought from a skirt.

Adding from does not make sense.

B has the prohibited from issue, and also the wording in B is all out of order such that, for one thing, the modifier that was banned seems to be modifying countries.

but PROHIBIT FROM is the correct Idiom. Is there any exception to this, if yes please explain.


Confused!! (

prohibit from must be followed by a VERBing, as follows:
X is prohibited from VERBing.
Conveyed meaning:
X has been ordered NOT TO PERFORM THE VERBing action.

SC83 in the OG for Verbal 2E:
Civil servants are prohibited from CONTINUING.
Conveyed meaning:
Civil servants have been ordered NOT TO CONTINUE.

vishalwin wrote::
Why A, D & E are wrong?

A and B: prohibited from sale
Since sale is not a VERBing, eliminate A and B.
The correct idiom is prohibited from SELLING.

E: Any chemical banned in the United States on medical grounds is prohibited from being sold to other countries.
Conveyed meaning:
Chemicals banned in the United States have been ORDERED not to be sold to other countries.
This meaning is nonsensical.
It is not possible to ORDER a chemical not to do something.