Select the most appropriate option that can substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. Beyond skills, experience, and training, companies search for applicants who display excitement — those they believe shall carry out allocated responsibilities cheerfully and cooperatively.

Correct — B. All four options replace the clause shall carry out allocated responsibilities, so the decision rests on the auxiliary and the collocation.

The subject of that clause is those, a third person, and the company is predicting behaviour, not imposing a duty. Plain prediction takes will, whereas shall with a third-person subject reads as an order.

Execute assigned duties is the standard collocation for work given to someone, and it leaves cheerfully and cooperatively describing exactly what they described before. Option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  shall take up any designated obligations — Keeps shall with the third-person subject those, turning a prediction into an imposed duty, and any designated obligations widens the promise from the duties actually assigned to whatever might be handed over.
• (c)
  will demonstrate non-biased work — Non-biased work introduces impartiality, which the sentence never raises. The clause has to say that the work is carried out cheerfully and cooperatively, not that it is fair.
• (d)
  should pick up all skills and works — pick up all skills and works changes the sense — to pick up skills is to learn them — and works is not standard English as a plural count noun for tasks.

Sentence-substitution items are decided on two grounds, grammar and collocation, and an option usually fails on one of them while reading smoothly.

The grammar here is the auxiliary. In modern usage will carries plain futurity for every person, while shall with a third-person subject carries obligation or command.

The collocation is the noun phrase. Duties are assigned and executed, responsibilities are allocated or shouldered, obligations are met or fulfilled — but obligations are not taken up, and tasks are not picked up as works.

Key facts

• Modern usage gives will plain futurity for every person, while shall with a third-person subject carries obligation or command.
• Assign collocates with duties, tasks and roles, giving assigned duties.
• Work meaning tasks is uncountable, and works instead means factories, engineering projects or an author's output.

Common traps

• Treating shall as the more formal and therefore the better choice
• Choosing an option that reads smoothly but adds an idea the sentence never had, such as bias

No directly related past PYQ was found.