I don't understand how the verb "were" agrees witht he subject "deal" at the end of the sentence? Can anyone explain?

GHong14 wrote:

Not one of the potential investors is expected to make an offer to buy First Interstate Bank until a merger agreement is signed that includes a provision for penalties if the deal were not to be concluded.

A. is expected to make an offer to buy First Interstate Bank until a merger agreement is signed that includes a provision for penalties if the deal were
B. is expected to make an offer for buying First Interstate Bank until they sign a merger agreement including a provision for penalties if the deal was
C. is expected to make an offer to buy First Interstate Bank until a merger agreement be signed by them with a provision for penalties if the deal were
D. are expected to make an offer for buying First Interstate Bank until it signs a merger agreement with a provision for penalties included if the deal was
E. are expected to be making an offer to buy First Interstate Bank until they sign a merger agreement including a provision for penalties if the deal were

IMO : A

GHong14 wrote:I don't understand how the verb "were" agrees witht he subject "deal" at the end of the sentence? Can anyone explain?

It's a property of the second conditional structure: if....past...future past, or in simpler words: if...were...would

Example: If I were to go there, I would get lucky for sure.
If he were a betting man, he would buy stocks on the internet.

It's the one specific case where the rules of subject - verb agreement fail, and thus is favorite to test in conditional sentences because people get confused. If the sentence uses the 2nd hypothetical conditional structure, AND uses the past form of the verb be (was or were), ALWAYS use were, regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural.

I am sorry, can you please clarify the explanation a little more. If this a If...Will v. If....would case? If so why is it if...will?

GHong14 wrote:I am sorry, can you please clarify the explanation a little more. If this a If...Will v. If....would case? If so why is it if...will?

Ok, you're right. I got caught up in explaining why were and not was, and forgot to address the fact that the "result" part is missing here.

Conditionals come in three structures:
No. 1: if....present....present/future
If you build it, they will come
If you study, you succeed.

Call this the "certain case", and it can use 'will' in the result part.

No.2: if....past...future past (would)
If you built it, they would come
If you studied, you would succeed.

Call this one the "hypothetical case", as it talks about things that are not true yet, but could, hypothetically, become true. This one uses "would" in the result part.

No. 3 (not important for the sentence above): if....had+v3....would+have+V3.
If you had built it, they would have come
If you had studied, you would have succeeded.
This one is "unreal past" - same as hypothetical, with the additional idea that "it's too late now".

In the question above, there's a "hidden conditional", implied but not explicitly mentioned: "If the deal were not included, the penalties (mentioned in the sentence) would be incurred." We would use "would" (and not "will") because
1) It's a hypothetical case, not a certain one, which requires the use of the 2nd conditional case.
and, more importantly
2) All of the answer choice use some version of the past in the "if" part, which also fits the 2nd conditional, and requires the result part (not mentioned) to use "would".

However, since the result part of this conditional is not mentioned, the entire discussion of would/will is irrelevant here. It's just important to understand that the conditional does not need to agree with the rest of the sentence, as it agrees with an unmentioned "would".

The decision of "was/were" stems from an additional rule specific to the 2nd conditional, which I discussed in my previous post: if the condition part (the past tense) uses the past form of "be" (was/were), it will always use "were", regardless of the whether the subject is plural or singular. It's a quirk of the 2nd conditional - call it an idiom, if you want, as there's no immediate logical explanation except for "because".

Wrong: If he was a betting man, he would buy stocks on the internet.
Right: If he were a betting man, he would buy stocks on the internet.

what is the source GHong14?

Thanks for the explanation. And the question came from the GMAT Prep software