interrogative sentence with two clauses?

Question

There is this question and it is confusing me:

Has the applicant completed, or is currently enrolled in any other studies or training outside XYZ (country name)?

The answer is:

Yes or No

Actually, I have completed. So what should be the answer (yes or no) and why?

Answer 1

You should answer "Yes."

"Or" in English is usually what is called in logic a non-exclusive "or." That means that "A or B" is considered true if A is true but not B, B is true but not A, or both A and B are true.

Sometimes context or vocabulary will entail that a simple "or" is to be understood as exclusive. For a simple example, the sentence "That was either a zebra or a giraffe" clearly intends an exclusive "or" because nothing is both a zebra and a giraffe. But the general case is that "or" without qualification is non-exclusive. The sentence "The quantitative requirement may be met by taking a year of mathematics or physics" does not mean that taking both math and physics will fail to meet the requirement.

Some people may interpret "either X or Y" as an exclusive "or." Unfortunately that usage is not universal. "Either X or else Y" is one way to specify an exclusive "or." Another is "A or B, but not both."

It is a lexical deficiency in English that it lacks a very sharp division between exclusive "or" (in Latin "aut X aut Y") and non-exclusive (in Latin "vel").

Answer 2

Strictly speaking, this is a combination of two question rather than a single question. The two questions are:

1. Has the applicant completed [...]? (A)
2. Or is he/she currently enrolled in any other studies or training outside XYZ (country name)?

These are two yes/no questions.

When these two questions are combined into a single question by changing the punctuation, each of the two parts requires an answer. For example, "No, he/she has not completed [...] and he/she is not enrolled in (...)."

Comments:

• (A) The verb to complete requires a direct object; the original question has no direct object (what has been completed?) and is therefore syntactically incorrect.
• The second part of the original sentence requires a subject, e.g.: "(...) or is he/she currently enrolled ..." The combined sentence has two subjects (both referring to the same person) and two main verbs.