The guidelines that _____ the company's approach to data privacy were updated last quarter.

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

• The guidelines
• that _____ the company's approach to data privacy
• were updated last quarter.
• Blank options vary: governs / was governing / is governing / govern (?)

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

'The guidelines...'

• This is our main subject - we're talking about some guidelines.

'...that _____ the company's approach to data privacy'

• This part describes which guidelines we're talking about - the ones that have something to do with the company's approach to data privacy.

Now here's where we need to fill in the blank. Let's look at our choices:

• governs (singular)
• was governing (singular, past)
• is governing (singular, present progressive)
• govern (plural)

So we're deciding between singular and plural verb forms.

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The word 'that' is referring back to 'guidelines'
• In this descriptive part, 'that' is standing in for 'guidelines'
• Since 'guidelines' is plural (more than one guideline), the verb needs to be plural too
• We need: govern (the plural form)

Now let's read the rest to see the complete picture:

'...were updated last quarter.'

• This tells us what happened to these guidelines - they got updated recently.

So the full meaning is: The guidelines (which govern the company's approach to data privacy) were updated last quarter.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Subject-Verb Agreement with Descriptive Clauses Using "That" or "Which"

When you use words like "that" or "which" to add a descriptive clause, and that word acts as the subject of its clause, the verb must agree with whatever noun "that" or "which" refers back to:

Pattern 1: Plural noun

• The students that study regularly do well on tests
• "that" refers to "students" (plural)
• verb is "study" (plural)

Pattern 2: Singular noun

• The student that studies regularly does well on tests
• "that" refers to "student" (singular)
• verb is "studies" (singular)

In our question:

• The guidelines that govern the company's approach to data privacy were updated
• "that" refers to "guidelines" (plural)
• verb must be "govern" (plural)

The key is to trace back what "that" or "which" is referring to - that tells you whether you need a singular or plural verb!