Ease Into Prep with an SAT^® Question of the Day

The shifting punctuation and the FANBOYS conjunction "and" in the choices are clues that this question is testing sentence structure. As you read the text from the beginning, think "Have I just read a complete idea"? Complete ideas are independent clauses that need to be connected properly. Here, the clause preceding the blank, "The use . . . resulted from . . . ," contains a subject, predicate verb, and a complete idea, so, it is an independent clause. The clause following the blank, "they became . . . ," is also a complete idea. Predict that the correct answer will contain one of the four ways to connect these clauses: a comma together with a FANBOYS conjunction, a semicolon alone, a period, or phrasing that makes the second clause dependent on the first. Choice (D) uses a semicolon alone and is correct. All the incorrect choices create run-ons.