______ she to decline the international fellowship, the scholarship would be awarded to the runner-up candidate.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: B. Were
- Step 1: In formal inverted second conditionals without 'if', the auxiliary 'were' is placed before the subject, followed by a 'to-infinitive'. 'Were she to decline' functions as the formal hypothetical equivalent of 'If she were to decline'. Answer: Were. Why not the others: "Should offer" uses 'should' which takes a bare infinitive ('decline') rather than the 'to-infinitive' structure present in the stem; "Had been" is the auxiliary for inverted third conditionals ('Had she declined') rather than hypothetical futures; "Would be" incorrectly places modal 'would' in the conditional clause and violates inversion rules.
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More Subjunctive, Inversion and Cleft Structures questions
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