Is my answer possible? (Newtonian Third Law Pairs and Forces, Multiple Choice Word Problem) So I recently took a test and the teacher graded my answer correct, yet my friends saw that the other answer was correct and they protest that it should be the right answer:
The question goes: 


*Jared is trying to decide if he will be able to push is car home after it runs out of gas. Which of the following conclusions is most likely to be true?
My answer:
a. If the car moves, it is because Jared pushed harder on the car than the car pushed on him.
My friends answer:
d. The car may move. The motion of the car depends only on the forces acting on the car, not the force of the car pushing back on Jared.
Image comparison: Link
What we're arguing about is that, is my answer or correct or was the teacher wrong?
Note: It's our teacher's first year teaching Physics.
 A: For Jared to push the car home he must cause some acceleration to start the car moving from rest. This is an application of Newton's 2nd law $\vec{F}_{total}=m\vec{a}$. The forces you need to consider are the force Jared can supply and the frictional force on the car. 
For  Jared to initially cause the car to accelerate the force he applies must be greater than the frictional force $\vec{F}_{Jared}>\vec{F}_{Frictional}$. Once he gets the car moving the force he applies need only equal the total resistive force on the car, this will allow the car to move with constant linear velocity.
By Newton's third law the car can not "push harder" on Jared than he does on the car, the forces are equal and opposite. Really the crucial point is that the frictional force on Jared is greater than the frictional force on the car. If this were not true he would just slip as he tried to push the car forward.
So your friends were indeed correct.
A: Your answer is correct because when looking at change in motion of an object, you look for the "net force" which is the sum of all forces in a scenario.
Examples of the net force being 0 are:


*

*The car is parked and Jared is standing next to it, not pushing on the car. Jared exerts 0N on the car which is exerting 0N on Jared. No motion happens

*Jared turns into the hulk and holds the car back as it drives forward. In this example we'll have the car exerting 900N on Jared (the hulk) with Jared pushing back with 900N. The net force is 0, so no motion occurs.


It is more likely that we'd be thinking about friction as the opposing force deciding whether or not Jared can push the car.
