Sentence Correction

In an attempt to guarantee the security of its innovative water purification method, the company required each employee to sign a confidentiality agreement prohibiting that its water purification methods be disclosed to companies using an analogous purification process.

A. prohibiting that its water purification methods be disclosed to companies
B. prohibiting them from the disclosing of its water purification methods to any company
C. prohibiting disclosure of its water purification methods to any company
D. that would prohibit them from disclosure of its water purification methods to companies
E. that would prohibit its water purification methods to be disclosed to a company

[spoiler]OA is C. But I couldn't find what is wrong with A. Any finding?[/spoiler]

If prohibit can use the subjunctive form "that...be" - I would say A is correct, if not B, D are out because of singular / plural issue E is passive...so we are left with C.

IN a IMO the meaning is not clear as the purpose of the agreement is to prohibit the disclousre of methods
but in A the wordings are awkard

In A, it is not clear who is prohibiting what from doing so and so. Moreover, "its" can refer to either company or employee.
And, the use of prohibit in A is unidiomatic.

If its can refer to company or employee, what is its referring to in C?

papgust wrote:In A, it is not clear who is prohibiting what from doing so and so. Moreover, "its" can refer to either company or employee.
And, the use of prohibit in A is unidiomatic.

I shouldn't have mentioned that point as all choices are having that. Anyway, to me it is still a pronoun referent error. But other choices are awkward in some way or the other and the best choice is C which is having only that pronoun error. Pronoun errors could be taken as a secondary error. If you have more errors in other choices, then you could tolerate a choice which only has a pronoun error and keeps the intended meaning intact.

mehravikas wrote:If prohibit can use the subjunctive form "that...be" - I would say A is correct, if not B, D are out because of singular / plural issue E is passive...so we are left with C.

I agree with u!!

I would still say the same thing if subjuctive forms can be used with prohibit then A stands correct.

Eagerly waiting for the OA.

papgust wrote:I shouldn't have mentioned that point as all choices are having that. Anyway, to me it is still a pronoun referent error. But other choices are awkward in some way or the other and the best choice is C which is having only that pronoun error. Pronoun errors could be taken as a secondary error. If you have more errors in other choices, then you could tolerate a choice which only has a pronoun error and keeps the intended meaning intact.

I guess umaa has already hid the answer

On the GMAT, gender bearing nouns will always take a gender. The GMAT is not concerned with political correctness and you will never see someone with unidentified gender referred to as "them" or "it".


Accordingly, the only parent noun with which "its" could possibly agree is the company, so no problem on that account.

Idiomatically, we prohibit someone from doing something; we don't use the subjunctive for negative action verbs. "Prohibiting that" is non-idiomatic.

C also doesn't use the correct idiom..its missing "from"

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:On the GMAT, gender bearing nouns will always take a gender. The GMAT is not concerned with political correctness and you will never see someone with unidentified gender referred to as "them" or "it".


Accordingly, the only parent noun with which "its" could possibly agree is the company, so no problem on that account.

Idiomatically, we prohibit someone from doing something; we don't use the subjunctive for negative action verbs. "Prohibiting that" is non-idiomatic.

mehravikas wrote:C also doesn't use the correct idiom..its missing "from"

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:On the GMAT, gender bearing nouns will always take a gender. The GMAT is not concerned with political correctness and you will never see someone with unidentified gender referred to as "them" or "it".


Accordingly, the only parent noun with which "its" could possibly agree is the company, so no problem on that account.

Idiomatically, we prohibit someone from doing something; we don't use the subjunctive for negative action verbs. "Prohibiting that" is non-idiomatic.

C completely changes it, so we're not prohibiting someone from doing something, we're prohibiting disclosure to someone, which is also fine.

Great thanks.