Which Vs That??

karthikpandian19 wrote:28. A representative of the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor contends that employers who offer benefits which permit that employees can balance home and work responsibilities better, realizing gains in attendance, recruiting, and retention.
(A) which permit that employees can balance home and work responsibilities better, realizing
(B) which permit employees balancing home and work responsibilities better will realize
(C) that permit employees to balance the responsibilities of home and work better will realize
(D) that permit employees a better balance between the responsibilities of home and work, thus realizing
(E) such that employees are permitted a balance between home and work responsibilities, and they will realize

IMO C

A representative of the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor contends that employers who offer benefits which permit that employees can balance home and work responsibilities better, realizing gains in attendance, recruiting, and retention.
(A) which permit that employees can balance home and work responsibilities better, realizing
(B) which permit employees balancing home and work responsibilities better will realize
(C) that permit employees to balance the responsibilities of home and work better will realize
(D) that permit employees a better balance between the responsibilities of home and work, thus realizing
(E) such that employees are permitted a balance between home and work responsibilities, and they will realize

IMO: C

OA is C, Can anyone explain this ?

IMO - C

I chose C but I heard some where on BTG "THAT" cannot agree in subject in with plural objectS? can one clear this ambiguity?

karthikgmat wrote:I chose C but I heard some where on BTG "THAT" cannot agree in subject in with plural objectS? can one clear this ambiguity?

The rule you are stating here is for the case when "that" is used as a demonstrative pronoun - in which case we have to use "those".

But here "that" is a relative pronoun.

Hope this helps !!

avik.ch wrote:

karthikgmat wrote:I chose C but I heard some where on BTG "THAT" cannot agree in subject in with plural objectS? can one clear this ambiguity?

The rule you are stating here is for the case when "that" is used as a demonstrative pronoun - in which case we have to use "those".

But here "that" is a relative pronoun.

Hope this helps !!

Exactly. "That" as a demonstrative pronoun serves as an adjective and is singular: "That car has been sitting there for an hour." When used as a relative pronoun (to link clauses), we don't have to worry about agreement.

karthikpandian19 wrote:28. A representative of the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor contends that employers who offer benefits which permit that employees can balance home and work responsibilities better, realizing gains in attendance, recruiting, and retention.
(A) which permit that employees can balance home and work responsibilities better, realizing
(B) which permit employees balancing home and work responsibilities better will realize
(C) that permit employees to balance the responsibilities of home and work better will realize
(D) that permit employees a better balance between the responsibilities of home and work, thus realizing
(E) such that employees are permitted a balance between home and work responsibilities, and they will realize

A uses "permit that", which is incorrect. It should be "permit to".

B uses "permit + -ing verb" which is also incorrect.

C uses "permit to" correctly: "permit employees to balance"

D uses "permit + noun".

E uses "such that", which doesn't work, and "they" is ambiguous and could refer to "employees" or "employers."

Hey Bill shouldnt C have a comma after "better"

A representative of the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor contends that employers who offer benefits that permit employees to balance the responsibilities of home and work better , will realize gains in attendance, recruiting, and retention.

By adding the comma, you would create a run-on sentence: ", will realize gains in attendance, recruiting, and retention." We have a conjugated verb ("will realize"), so we'd need a subject after the comma to go with it.

It works pretty well as is:

"...employers (who offer benefits that permit employees to balance the responsibilities of home and work better) will realize gains in attendance, recruiting, and retention."

Bill,

Isn't there a rule which says that non-restrictive clause such as 'which' should always be set-off by comma? I just skipped the first 2 options as they didn't have commas.

joshmachine wrote:Bill,

Isn't there a rule which says that non-restrictive clause such as 'which' should always be set-off by comma? I just skipped the first 2 options as they didn't have commas.

Correct but an exception - "which" coming after a preposition will not be preceded by comma e.g. "in which"
See https://www.beatthegmat.com/mission-crit ... tml#455730

joshmachine wrote:Bill,

Isn't there a rule which says that non-restrictive clause such as 'which' should always be set-off by comma? I just skipped the first 2 options as they didn't have commas.

Nope. If it's critical to understand the meaning of the sentence, we don't use commas...we want it as part of the "main" sentence. If it's simply extra information, then it is set off with commas.

In this case, it's crucial. We have to know that the employers we're talking about are the ones "that permit employees to balance..." in order to understand which employers "realize gains in attendance, recruiting, and retention."

An easy way to see if you need commas is to remove the modifying phrase from the sentence. If you lose a lot of meaning or context, then don't use commas. If you can still understand the main idea without that modifying phrase, use commas.

It can be split by determining if it is a case of an essential/non essential modifier. which/that modifies benefits. Since benefits have been uniquely determined as those offered by employers, the modifier is essential (that) . Also the lack of comma hinted at it being an essential modifier since which almost always requires a preceding comma.

Ex: Had the sentence been. "...Dept of Labor contends that benefits, which permit... ". Here benefits are not uniquely determined and hence would have required a comma followed by which.