That every worker has a clean criminal record is of some importance to investment banks which is why a stringent background check is a necessary prerequisite for all of their job applicants.

A) That every worker has a clean criminal record is of some importance to investment banks which is why a stringent background check is a necessary prerequisite for all of their job applicants

B) Clean criminal records of their employees is important to investment banks; hence, a stringent background check are necessary prerequisites for employment

C) Because they consider it important that all of their employees have a clean criminal record, investment banks require each job applicant to undergo a stringent background check

D) It is of some importance that all investment banks’ workers have clean criminal records which is why many of them undergo stringent background checks

E) The reason that investment banks require background checks of their applicants is because they require clean criminal records of their employees

OA is C

I had eliminated C thinking " Investment Banks " is a collective noun. The use of they hence didn't seem proper. Can someone please shed some light?

Thanks

Could you say: "Investment banks is planning some activites this fall"? This probably sounds wrong to you, and it is. We are talking about investment banks as individual entities; although there are multiples of them, they do not consitute a unified whole.

In this question, IT refers to what noun?

Regards

The pronoun "it" can refer to a specific noun in a sentence, or it can also serve as a "dummy" pronoun, without a clear referent. For example, if I say "it is raining outside," what is the "it" in that sentence referring to? The sky? Mother Nature? No... it just is... The pronoun "it" isn't referring to anything concrete in that instance. Instead, the pronoun is referring to some unknown, abstract state of being.

Really annoying, huh? So how to deal with this on the test? Ask yourself what kind of noun the "it" could refer to in the sentence. If there isn't a good answer (as there isn't to my "it is raining outside" sentence), then it's probably a dummy pronoun and you can ignore it.

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

The reasoning you've listed (sub-verb agreement on B, redundancy in E) is correct. I don't know your reasoning for A and D - you haven't actually explained why you highlighted some words in red. If you'd like to do so, we'll be happy to tell you whether your reasoning is correct!

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

For me A and D ontain " which is why" ... that's the reason I have eliminated these.

Please le me know if this is correct.

Thanks

correct. if you attribute these modifiers to the immediately preceding noun (as you must do for "which"), then the sentences don't make sense.

nicely done.

what about 'they' in C. There is NO ANTECEDENT!
Please somebody help me with this...I don't get this.

No an expert but my reasoning is:

"Because they consider it important that all of their employees have a clean criminal record" is a dependent clause modifying the subject of "investment banks require each job applicant to undergo a stringent background check", which is the investment bank.

"they" refers to "investment banks".

this is an acceptable construction - pronoun coming before antecedent, when the pronoun is in an initial modifier and the antecedent is in the main clause.
this is NOT acceptable if the pronoun is in the main clause and the antecedent is in a modifier that follows.

examples:
Although he had studied for hours, Thom failed the test --> acceptable
He failed the test, although Thom had studied for hours --> incorrect

Hey GMAT Staff,

I agree C seems best among all...
bt C also have an error .."consider it important that all of their employees"
Correct idiom is consider xy.....bt here it is using consider x that y...
so i think c is also wrong.

we have "consider x y" here. "consider it important". x=it, y=important. you were looking too far down the line.. :)

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

I hope I am not waking a dead horse. My question is regarding choice C. It says
".... investment banks require each job applicant to undergo a stringent background check".

Shouldnt this part be in subjunctive mood and say
".... investment banks require that each job applicant undergo a stringent background check"

here's some good advice in general for SC: do not EVER ask yourself what a sentence "should" say. instead, ask whether the sentence is acceptable in its current form. your example works, but so does the original, which is why we keep the original..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor