In an effort to improve public transit, the city installed real-time arrival monitors at every bus stop, the data ______ from GPS units on each vehicle and transmitted wirelessly to passengers’ phones.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
For Standard English sentence-completion questions that test verb forms and structure, first locate the main clause and see whether the underlined portion belongs to that clause or to a descriptive phrase after a comma. Then check whether the blank needs a full verb (with its own subject) or a non-finite form like a participle. Use nearby words for clues about parallel structure (for example, matching the form of another verb like “transmitted”) and eliminate any options that create comma splices, subject–verb disagreement, or illogical meanings. Quickly testing each option in the full sentence out loud or in your head is an efficient way to spot errors under time pressure.
Hints
Look at where the comma is
Notice that the main idea of the sentence is already complete before the comma. Ask yourself: after the comma, do we need another full sentence, or just a phrase that adds extra information?
Focus on how the data is described
The words after the blank talk about GPS units and wireless transmission. Think about whether the data is doing the action or having something done to it.
Match the form of “transmitted”
The word right after the blank is part of the phrase “and transmitted wirelessly.” Ask: what verb form in the blank would line up smoothly with “transmitted” so that both actions are described in the same way?
Watch out for creating a new full clause
If you pick an option with a full verb phrase (like something that could stand as its own sentence with the subject “the data”), you may accidentally turn the part after the comma into a run-on sentence.
Step-by-step Explanation
Understand the sentence structure
Read the whole sentence:
In an effort to improve public transit, the city installed real-time arrival monitors at every bus stop, the data [blank] from GPS units on each vehicle and transmitted wirelessly to passengers’ phones.
The main clause is complete before the comma: the city installed real-time arrival monitors at every bus stop.
What follows the comma provides additional information about how the system works. It should function as an absolute phrase describing the circumstances, not as another independent clause.
Decide what kind of verb form is needed
After the comma, the relevant portion is:
the data [blank] from GPS units on each vehicle and transmitted wirelessly to passengers’ phones
This portion describes what happens to the data: it is taken from GPS units and then transmitted. Therefore, the blank should contain a passive, descriptive participle rather than a finite verb that would create another independent clause.
Also, transmitted is a past participle, so the word in the blank should match that form to create parallel structure.
Eliminate choices that create a comma splice
Check which options turn the portion after the comma into an independent clause:
- A) are collected makes the data are collected from GPS units an independent clause. The result is two independent clauses joined only by a comma, creating a comma splice.
- B) has been collected also makes the portion beginning with the data an independent clause, producing the same comma-splice error.
The sentence needs a participial phrase after the comma, not another independent clause.
Check meaning and parallelism
D) collecting is an -ing form. In this construction, it would suggest that the data performs the action of collecting, but the data is what gets collected. It also fails to match the past-participle form transmitted.
The blank therefore requires a past participle that indicates an action performed on the data and remains parallel with transmitted.
Complete the absolute phrase
C) collected creates a parallel pair of past participles:
..., the data collected from GPS units on each vehicle and transmitted wirelessly to passengers’ phones.
This construction correctly describes what happens to the data without creating a second independent clause. Therefore, the correct answer is collected.