A punctuation question with several verbs tests whether the sentence's parts are joined correctly. Read across the blank and test for full sentences. A period or semicolon needs one on each side; a comma can't cut off words needed to finish a noun or verb. Then ask who or what goes with each verb and how the next part depends on the words before it. Base punctuation on how the words fit together, not where you'd pause.
Hints
- Hint 1
Test whether the words after the blank can stand alone. Pay attention to how argue and clarifies would each get a subject.
- Hint 2
Look for what does the clarifying. Who does the phrase about being skeptical of the surveyors' accuracy describe?
- Hint 3
Check how the words after the blank relate to the noun before it. What punctuation does that relationship allow?
Step-by-step
Test the breaks, then connect the clause
Step 1Test the sentence breaks
After the blank, we reach nevertheless argue clarifies how the expedition navigated. A period or semicolon needs a full sentence on each side, so could these words stand alone? In either version with a sentence break, the historians are the subject of argue, but clarifies has no subject of its own in the claim they make. The version with a period and the version with a semicolon cut these words off from the evidence, so the words on the right can't stand alone.
- Step 2
Find what clarifies the route
What clarifies how the expedition navigated? It's the body of evidence, and the historians argue that it does. The long phrase about doubting the surveyors describes the historians, so it doesn't give clarifies a subject. A clause beginning with that lets us describe the evidence through what the historians say about it. In that clause, that refers to the evidence and is the subject of clarifies, even with the words about the historians in between.
- Step 3
Keep the description attached
Does the description of the evidence need a comma? The clause that includes clarifies how the expedition navigated tells us which body of evidence the archivists found: one the historians argue helps explain the route. No comma goes between a noun and the that clause that finishes it, so the version with a comma cuts off words that belong together. Use evidence that several to join the noun directly to its description. Choice A.