<p>Can someone tell me what they think the answer to this question would be-</p>
<p>(Despite) having fared poorly (in each of the last five seasons), the cheerleaders (on the squad) remained confident in their ability to defeat (any team) in their division.</p>
<p>This question doesn’t make sense. Cheerleaders don’t play in teams and therefore don’t fare poorly or defeat teams. Teams defeat teams, but they do not defeat themselves, so you say “a team defeats any other team” as opposed to “a team defeats any team,” because “any team” includes the aforementioned team.</p>
<p>this question is from McGraw-Hill. I just wanted to see what you guys thought. I thought it was a really dumb question. The explanation they give is similar to the one above.</p>