ceilidh.erickson wrote:I'm assuming that there were a few typos, and that the correct version is below:

The groundswell of public opinion made it inevitable that the senate would approve the president's energy proposals.

A it inevitable that the senate would approve
B it inevitable that the senate had approved
C it inevitable of the senate of approve
D inevitable the approval of the senate of
E the approval of the senate inevitable of

Here, we have a cause / effect relationship: groundswell of opinion --> senate approval.
We need to pick an answer that keeps this relationship clear in time.

A. it inevitable that the senate would approve
Idiomatically correct & clear meaning.
B. it inevitable that the senate had approved
"had approved" implies that the approval already happened, not that it *would* happen after the groundswell. This doesn't make sense.

C. it inevitable of the senate of approve
The correct idiom is "make inevitable that" not "make inevitable of"

D. inevitable the approval of the senate of
- "make inevitable" is perfectly correct - we didn't need "it"
- "approval by the senate" not "of the senate" would have been correct here
- unnecessarily passive (not necessarily wrong, but not stylistically preferred)

E. the approval of the senate inevitable of
- "inevitable of" is not a correct idiom
- the meaning (cause-effect structure) is unclear here.

The answer is A.