”room reservations be made in advance" or "room reservations are made in advance"
Hi, friends on italki.
I have a grammatical question about verb form in the following sentence which is cited from the official textbook of TOEIC test.
The sentence says;
It is recommended that room reservations be made well in advance.

I am confused about the verb form of "be" in the sentence. I could not understand why the writer place "be" here instead of "are". I would appreciate it if you could clarify it for me.

Please help me!

Question

”room reservations be made in advance" or "room reservations are made in advance"
Hi, friends on italki. 
I have a grammatical question about verb form in the following sentence which is cited from the official textbook of TOEIC test. 
The sentence says; 
It is recommended that room reservations be made well in advance.

I am confused about the verb form of "be" in the sentence. I could not understand why the writer place "be" here instead of "are". I would appreciate it if you could clarify it for me.

Please help me!

Answer

Yes, the form "be" indicates the subjunctive mood.

Answer

It is recommended that room reservations be made well in advance. 
It is recommended that room reservations ARE made well in advance.

they are interchangeable and "ARE made in advance is how most people would say it
"BE" Made in advance is how you will see it on a notice or sign or in an instruction text

and talk about subjunctive etc is only for linguists to debate about.
So if you are not studying linguistics there is no need to worry about it.

Answer

This is an example of subjunctive mood in English. I believe it's used because it's a suggestion, not a certainty :)

Answer

First of all, the sentence is correct. 
I believe that the use of the word "be" puts the sentence into the subjunctive, though I'm not 100% sure, since I'm a native speaker who never studied English formally.
However, in every day speech, most people would say "We recommend that you reserve the rooms in advance."  The sentence that you gave sounds more formal.

Answers · 8

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