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While I am training for my TOEFL exam using an Android mobile application, I found this question which seemed trivial to me but it turned out to be more complicated. Can somebody help me understand the grammar behind this answer because all what I could find using Google is what I already know:

Before a person may drive a car on a public highway, it is necessary that he _____ a driving test.

  • take (the right answer)
  • is taking
  • took
  • takes (my answer)
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mmonem
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    You might want to Google "subjunctive mood". – user888379 Jul 13 '17 at 15:27
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    This might help: https://english.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=subjunctive%20mood – NVZ Jul 13 '17 at 15:45
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    << It is essential that everyone attend the meeting. / It is essential that everyone attends the meeting. / It is essential that everyone should attend the meeting. >> are all stated to be acceptable and equivalent in CGEL 11:7. This makes the insistence on the mandative subjunctive take in the test question unwarranted; it would be rarely used in the UK. Some may argue that the mandative choice is better than the declarative on disambiguation grounds; I'd suggest that they should ditch both in favour of the periphrastic should construction if they're sincere rather than prejudiced. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 13 '17 at 15:56
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    If you want to sound like a modern native speaker, use the inflected form *takes. If you need to pass one of those outdated language tests, use subjunctive take*. – FumbleFingers Jul 13 '17 at 15:57
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    This question is clearly based on American English. I thought the TOEFL was supposed to be unbiased. I would thus strongly suspect that this question would *not* actually appear on the TOEFL. Rather, I suspect an American wrote the Android mobile application you're using. – Peter Shor Jul 13 '17 at 15:57
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    @FumbleFingers: if you want to sound like a modern native speaker of British English, use *takes. If you want to sound like a modern native speaker of American English from the Northeast, use take*. (I can't vouch for other parts of the country. They use some strange grammar in places.) – Peter Shor Jul 13 '17 at 15:58
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    They're all wrong, partly through violating Gricean maxims. 'Before a person may legally drive a car while alone on a public highway, it is necessary that he should pass a driving test.' – Edwin Ashworth Jul 13 '17 at 16:02
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    @Peter: I've said before that I think post-Webster AmE seems noticeably more conservative than BrE, despite the fact that in general Americans tend to think of anything that sounds [out]dated as being "British" (I suppose they think we're all still "Victorian" over here). But I bet even in the Northeast, the subjunctive is becoming less common in normal conversational contexts (not that OP's context falls into that category anyway; even Brits would probably still use the subjunctive in "formal, legal" contexts like that). – FumbleFingers Jul 13 '17 at 16:10
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    @FumbleFingers: I hear the subjunctive all the time in normal conversational contexts. (Although I admit that sometimes people do use the indicative.) – Peter Shor Jul 13 '17 at 16:11
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    @Peter: I have quite a few Indian neighbours who aren't native speakers of English. I'm not sure it would be correct to say they speak "Indian English" (as opposed to simply saying that they're not quite fluent native Anglophones in the UK context), but my gut feel is Indians don't use this "mandative subjunctive" so often as even Brits, let alone Americans. I'd be interested to know how this one plays out with Chinese learners, who I suspect will have a big influence on "International English" in the coming decades (I quite like many innovations originating in IE, but "CE" is an unknown). – FumbleFingers Jul 13 '17 at 16:21
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    I agree that in some contexts it's necessary that he use* the subjunctive, but it's tiresome that he uses it in other contexts where it's not needed.* – FumbleFingers Jul 13 '17 at 16:29
  • I enjoyed all comments and the information they have. Thank you all. – mmonem Jul 13 '17 at 18:12
  • Is that question from a paper based TOEFL? – Red shoes Jul 14 '17 at 03:39
  • The worst method of learning language is learning grammar! BTW – Red shoes Jul 14 '17 at 03:44
  • The question is from a highly rated famous Android app and I don't the source of its questions – mmonem Jul 14 '17 at 07:31

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