OG 73

73.   The British Admiralty and the War Office met in March 1892 to consider a possible Russian attempt to seize Constantinople and how they would have to act militarily to deal with them.

(A) how they would have to act militarily to deal with them

(B) how to deal with them if military action would be necessary

(C) what would be necessary militarily for dealing with such an event

(D) what military action would be necessary in order to deal with such an event（D）

(E) the necessity of what kind of military action in order to take for dealing with it

In choices A and B, the pronoun them has no antecedent; furthermore, the if clause in B must take should rather than would. In C, necessary militarily is awkward and vague. E is wordy and garbles the meaning with incorrect word order. Choice D is best: its phrasing is clear, grammatical, and idiomatic. Moreover, D is the choice that most closely parallels the construction of the nonunderlined portion of the sentence. The sentence states that the Admiralty and the War Office met to consider x and y, where x is the noun phrase a possible Russian attempt. D provides a noun phrase, military action, that matches the structure of x more closely than do the corresponding noun elements in the other choices.

不知道这里为什么if后面要有should而不能用would?是虚拟语气吗？好象这里用虚拟有点讲不通，除非office自己本来就已经认采取军事行动没有必要。那是不是因为条件从句应该用一般现在时表将来呢？

主将从现，难道caterpillar忘了吗

(B) how to deal with them if military action would be necessary

b选项本来就是错误选项阿，没有用should,又怎么用was呢

嗯，我也想知道，好象bon bon跟我说的不是一个意思。能不能再解释详细一点？

if 从句用过去式表与现在事实相反, OG说用should 则可避免掉这样的歧义, 又可以表达would 所要表达的意思....

好啊，又学一招，谢谢狗狗。