Several educational research groups are denouncing the mayor's proposal of a system by which individual teachers would be given raises or bonuses should it be that test scores show their students' mastery of reading skills having improved over a nine-month period.

(A) should it be that test scores show their students' mastery of reading skills having
(B) should it be that test scores show their students' mastery of reading skills have
(C) should test scores showing their students' mastery of reading skills has
(D) if test scores showing their students' mastery of reading skills having
(E) if test scores show that their students' mastery of reading skills has

A, B, C and D have some serious problem and so only E can be the possible answer.
As far as I know, "would" in the main clause of an if statement should be paired with "were/were to/verb in past tense/should" to express something that contradicts to the fact or something impossible to happen in the future..
I don't understand why the sentence uses "would be given" instead of "will be given".

You raise a good question... the general rule for conditional statements describes three cases:

1. if [present] then [will + verb (or just future tense)]
2. if [past] then [would/could + verb]
3. if [past perfect] then [would/could + have + verb]

In this sentence, the non-underlined portion gives us "would be given" in the then clause, suggesting that a past tense verb would appear in the if clause. Instead we get the present tense verb "show" in the if clause of the correct answer E. That present tense would suggest we're dealing with case #1 above, so why does the sentence use "would be given" instead of "will be given?"

I can't point to a rule specifically concerning conditional statements of this kind that nails it down, but I will pass this question on to others to see if they can cite a rule. Personally, I think the sentence would work just fine with "will be given." But my best guess is that it comes down to the meaning of the sentence. The fact that this plan is merely a proposal of the mayor and not something already in effect would be at odds with the very definite sounding "will be given raises or bonuses." The conditional "would" conveys that sense.

Again, I'll pass this one around and one of us will chime in if we have something substantive.

actually, whenever a situation is purely HYPOTHETICAL, "would" is better than "will", even if the if-clause is rendered in the present tense.

the original poster has (correctly) asserted that "would" is used if the referenced situation is impossible or contradictory to fact, but it's more general than that: if we're dealing with a situation that is purely hypothetical, or when there is doubt as to whether the situation will come to pass, we use "would", "not "will".

example:
a bill that would mandate paternity testing for all live births is up for voting in the tennessee state senate.
even though this event is happening in the present, the bill's consequences are still hypothetical; there is doubt as to whether the bill will pass. therefore, the conditional is appropriate. (if the sentence were worded as "will mandate", that would seem to imply that the bill will pass for sure.)

Hi Ron,

I thought that all the conditional statements were hypothetical in some senses, no?

Thanks in advance.

I think I know what you mean.

If you leave that container of milk in your fridge for three months, it will go bad.

That's hypothetical in the sense that - who knows whether you're really going to leave milk in your fridge for three months? But if you do, then there's no doubt - it's going to go bad. And the will/would debate is about that second event, not the first one. :)

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

Thanks Stacy.
I think I understand what you mean.
It is hard to guess whether the sentence is trying to express a hypothetical sense tho. =(

you're welcome!

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

In the second part of the sentence " if test scores show that their students' mastery of reading skills has " , isnt the subject "students's mastery of reading skills " plural ?

Don't let the other words in there fool you. The subject is "mastery," a singular term. The "of...." is just a middleman.