Former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt and Indian activist and educator Hansa Mehta were instrumental in drafting...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt
  • and Indian activist and educator Hansa Mehta
    • were instrumental in drafting the United Nations' Universal Declaration
      • of Human Rights,
        • a document that (?) the basic freedoms
          • to which all people are entitled.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

'Former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt and Indian activist and educator Hansa Mehta were instrumental in drafting the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights'

This tells us about two important historical figures:

• Eleanor Roosevelt (who was First Lady)
• Hansa Mehta (an Indian activist and educator)

And what they did:

• They were instrumental in drafting - meaning they played a key role in creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Now the sentence continues with more information about this document:

• 'a document that ______ the basic freedoms to which all people are entitled.'

Now here's where we need to fill in the blank. The sentence is describing what this document does - it does something with "the basic freedoms to which all people are entitled."

Let's look at our choices:

1. have outlined
2. were outlining
3. outlines
4. outline

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The word "that" is pointing back to "a document"
  • "that" is the subject of the verb we need to fill in
  • Since "that" refers to "a document" (singular), we need a singular verb
• Looking at our choices:
  • A, B, and D are all plural forms (have, were, outline in plural)
  • C is the singular form (outlines)
• Also, think about the timing:
  • The document exists and continues to outline these freedoms
  • It's describing what the document does in a timeless way
  • So simple present tense (outlines) makes sense

So we need C. outlines - it's singular to match "a document" and it's present tense to describe what the document does.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Making Verbs Agree with Relative Pronouns

When a relative pronoun like "that" or "which" is the subject of a verb, that verb must agree in number with the noun the pronoun refers to (called the antecedent in grammar terms). Here's the pattern:

Step 1: Find what the relative pronoun refers to

• "a document that ______ the basic freedoms"
• "that" refers back to → "a document" (singular)

Step 2: Make the verb match that noun in number

• Since "a document" is singular → verb must be singular
• Singular form: "outlines" ✓
• Plural forms: "outline," "have outlined," "were outlining" ✗

Additional consideration - tense for timeless statements:
When describing what something does in a general, ongoing way (like what a document contains or states), we use simple present tense. The document didn't just outline these freedoms once in the past - it continues to outline them as an existing document.

In this question:

• "that" → refers to "a document" (singular)
• Verb must be singular: "outlines"
• Present tense describes the document's ongoing function