Explanation for Question 43 From the Writing Section on the 2020 March Sat
Not for number 43. Our best answer is going to be D the reason 2 being that our sentence starts with an independent clause, 3 it says the Greek in 2015, the Greek government decided not to pursue legal 4 action against Britain, right? 5 This is an independent clause because it has our subject, 6 the Greek government, and it has our verb decided. 7 And then if we look here in our answer choice, 8 D it says comma opting instead for continued diplomatic efforts. 9 And now this part here, let me under or highlight in a different color 10 so we can see more clearly this part in pink often for continued diplomatic 11 efforts is a dependent clause, 12 right? We it's a dependent clause because it doesn't have a subject. 13 We don't know who is doing the opting. And since it's a dependent clause, 14 the begins with an ING verb, that means that we have to start it 15 off with a comma. 16 So this is a general rule of thumb. If you have a dependent clause 17 after an independent clause, and that dependent clause starts with an ING verb, 18 such as opting, you put a comma between your two clauses. 19 And so D is the only one that has that rule and follows that 20 rule effectively. Um, 21 but we can also eliminate the other answer choices. 22 If we look at a, it says comma, 23 or actually it doesn't have a comment. It says, um, 24 for Britain, instead of opting for continued diplomatic efforts, 25 let's read that. And 2015, the Greek government decided not to pursue legal action 26 against...