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Source of Wrong Tense or Verb Form

1.Burnett,L., 2001, 15 frequently occuring grammatical mistakes, The Learning Centre, UNSW, Sydney

My questions:

Compare these sentences:

1.They were required filling out a long form before enrolling in the course.

2.They were required to fill out a long form before enrolling in the course.

3.They required to fill out a long form before enrolling in the course.

The correct one according to the supervisor is the 3rd one.

  1. Is this correct? Why is it? To my ear the 2nd sounds better than the 3rd form....Can someone break down the sentence, parsing it into "understandable" and "logical" one?

  2. What is the name of this structure? What is the name of the terms in linguistics, if any?

  3. This 'required' in 3rd sentence seems in 'transitive' and 'active sense' so it "requires" an 'object', but in this construction it doesn't seem to need it, why is it?

  4. What is the difference between:

    They were required to fill out a long form before enrolling in the course.

    and

    They required to fill out a long form before enrolling in the course.

and

They were required filling out a long form before enrolling in the course.

and

They required filling out a long form before enrolling in the course.

Context: Academic, formal English

Source:

Burnett,L., 2001, 15 frequently occuring grammatical mistakes, The Learning Centre, UNSW, Sydney

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4
  • related: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/142849/…
    – Flonne
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 4:20
  • 1
    Can you double check this? I feel like your sentence: #3."They required to fill out a long form before enrolling in the course." is definitely incorrect and would not sound OK in any context I can imagine. #2, however, sounds fine.
    – Lorel C.
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 4:32
  • Yes, it is written there. That's why I ask ... This may spell a problem for me since it's inside my guideline for writing English correctly ...
    – Flonne
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 4:34
  • 1
    Unless you can relay the reasoning, I can only say that it's wrong. The only grammatical sentence I can see is the second one.
    – Jason Bassford
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 4:34

1 Answer 1

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I see two possible valid forms for this sentence. First is your version #2.

They were required to fill out a long form before enrolling in the course.

That uses the passive form of the verb 'to require'. It means students were instructed to fill out a long form.

Another valid version is this:

They required the filling out a long form before enrolling in the course.

That uses the active form of the verb 'to require'. It means the school instructed others to fill out a long form.

Note how the meaning of those two is very similar, but for one 'they' refers to the students, and for the other 'they' refers to the school.

As the comments already made by others indicate - your text book is wrong!

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1
  • Thanks for your clarification. Actually, it's not a textbook, it's a new guideline from my university to write a research proposal in English. It contains "15 frequently occuring grammatical mistakes" by Burnett L., The Learning Centre, UNSW, Sydney.
    – Flonne
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 10:12

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