In this sentence completion question from business English, you must fill in the blank with the most suitable verb so that the sentence sounds natural and precise. The sentence is: The investment bankers worked with the management of both the merging companies to ______ a consensus on the merger terms. Choose the option that completes the sentence correctly.

Introduction / Context:
This question tests your understanding of appropriate verb collocations in formal business language. The sentence describes what investment bankers and company management aim to do when negotiating merger terms. In such contexts, certain nouns regularly appear with specific verbs. Here, the noun is consensus, which refers to a general agreement among the parties. Your task is to choose the verb that naturally combines with consensus in standard professional English.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• The sentence is: The investment bankers worked with the management of both the merging companies to ______ a consensus on the merger terms.
• The options are express, emerge, elucidate, and reach.
• The subject of the verb is the investment bankers working with management.
• The object or complement will involve consensus on the merger terms.
• The style is formal and related to corporate finance and negotiations.

Concept / Approach:
The noun consensus meaning general agreement typically collocates with the verb reach or sometimes build. The standard phrase is reach a consensus. The other verbs in the options either take different types of objects or represent different actions. express is used with opinions or feelings, emerge is used for something that appears or becomes known, and elucidate means to explain or clarify a concept. None of these is normally used directly with consensus as an object in the given structure.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Insert express into the blank: to express a consensus on the merger terms. While it is possible to express a consensus, this more often means voicing an agreement that already exists, not the primary act of achieving it. Step 2: Insert emerge into the blank: to emerge a consensus on the merger terms. This is ungrammatical because emerge is usually intransitive, as in a consensus emerged, and is not used with an object. Step 3: Insert elucidate into the blank: to elucidate a consensus on the merger terms. Elucidate means to clarify or explain something, typically an idea or concept, not to achieve agreement itself. Step 4: Insert reach into the blank: to reach a consensus on the merger terms. This is a very common and natural expression in negotiations and business writing. Step 5: Compare all options and note that reach produces the most accurate and idiomatic sentence in corporate English.

Verification / Alternative check:
Think of how news reports and financial analyses describe such situations: The parties failed to reach a consensus on the merger terms or After long discussions, they finally reached a consensus. These examples demonstrate that reach is the standard verb used with consensus. Other combinations such as express a consensus may appear in specific contexts but usually after the consensus already exists, whereas this sentence focuses on the process of achieving agreement.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
express places emphasis on stating or communicating an existing opinion rather than on achieving agreement among parties.
emerge cannot take consensus as a direct object, because it is intransitive in standard English usage and means to come into view or become known on its own.
elucidate means to make something clear by explanation and does not describe the process of forming a joint agreement among different parties.

Common Pitfalls:
A common error is to focus only on the general meaning of words without checking standard collocations. Because express and elucidate are advanced sounding verbs, some candidates may choose them simply because they look sophisticated. However, professional language often relies on fixed combinations like reach a decision, reach an agreement, and reach a consensus. Memorising such common verb noun pairs will greatly improve both comprehension and accuracy in exams.

Final Answer:
The most appropriate and widely used collocation is reach a consensus, so the correct answer is reach.