Many companies are exploring innovative employee wellness solutions. A tech firm in Seattle recently launched a comprehensive program that _____...

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

• Many companies are exploring innovative employee wellness solutions.
• A tech firm in Seattle
  • recently launched a comprehensive program
    • that [provides/provide/provided/are providing] (?) personalized mental health support to employees
      • through a mobile platform.

Understanding the Meaning

The passage starts by giving us context:

• 'Many companies are exploring innovative employee wellness solutions.'
  • This tells us what's happening in the broader business world.

Now the second sentence focuses on one specific example:

• 'A tech firm in Seattle recently launched a comprehensive program'
  • So a particular tech company created this program.

Then we get a description of what this program does:

• 'that _____ personalized mental health support to employees through a mobile platform.'

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at our choices:

• A. are providing
• B. provide
• C. provided
• D. provides

To see what works here, let's understand the structure. What do we notice?

• The word 'that' starts a clause describing the program
  • 'That' is connecting back to 'program' - it's telling us what the program does
  • This means 'that' is the subject of this part, and it refers to 'program'
• 'Program' is singular (one program)
  • So the verb needs to be singular too
• The sentence is describing what the program does as its ongoing function
  • The program was launched (past), but what it provides is what it's designed to do (present)

So we need a singular, present tense verb: provides

The complete meaning is: A Seattle tech firm created a program that provides mental health support to employees through an app.

Grammar Concept Applied

Subject-Verb Agreement with Descriptive Clauses

When you use words like "that," "which," or "who" to add information about something (called relative pronouns in grammar terms), the verb that follows must agree with what that word refers back to:

Pattern:

• Original noun: a comprehensive program (singular)
• Descriptive clause added: that provides support
• "that" = refers back to "program"
• "provides" = singular verb matching the singular noun "program"

More examples:

• The students who study regularly do well (students = plural → study)
• The student who studies regularly does well (student = singular → studies)
• The app that helps users track sleep (app = singular → helps)

In this question:

• "program" (singular) → "that" (refers to program) → "provides" (singular verb)

The verb must match the noun that the relative pronoun refers back to, not other nouns that might appear nearby in the sentence.