Policy _______ archival labor-market data is essential to evaluating the effects of different employment laws. These long-term records allow scholars to compare countries’ labor conditions before a law is introduced with conditions that emerge years after enactment.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Context: The sentence needs “access” to belong to policy analysts (plural, since the next sentence says “scholars”) and “data” to belong to countries (plural, matching “countries’ labor conditions”).
Answer: B) analysts’ access to countries’
Why? Rule: a plural noun ending in -s takes an apostrophe after the s to show possession. Both possessors are plural, so both need s-apostrophe: “analysts’ access” and “countries’ … data.”
Traps:
- A) analyst’s / country’s → both singular; conflicts with the plural “countries’” in the following sentence.
- C) analysts (no apostrophe) → plural but not possessive, so “access” has no owner.
- D) Neither word possessive → leaves “Policy analysts access…” with no possessive relationship at all.