Recovered from a Roman fort near Hadrian’s Wall, fragments of letters written on thin wooden tablets preserve requests for socks, dinner invitations, and military reports—evidence that ______ “a record of frontier life shaped as much by routine relationships as by imperial strategy.”
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
For difficult boundary questions, first reduce the sentence to its core subject and finite verb. Then restore each modifier one at a time, marking the complete beginning and end of any interrupting phrase while keeping restrictive clauses attached to the nouns they identify. Finally, verify that commas do not separate an essential name from its title or a subject from its verb.
Hints
Find the main subject and verb
Temporarily remove the descriptive material and identify who performs the action expressed by “calls.”
Trace the modifier’s full extent
Determine where the phrase beginning with “comparing” ends. Remember that this phrase contains another clause.
Classify the relative clause
Consider whether “that emphasize commands and supplies” identifies particular reports or merely adds optional information about already identified reports.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the clause’s core structure
In the relative clause beginning with “that,” the subject is “Roman historian Elena Varga,” and the finite verb is “calls.” The core structure is therefore “evidence that Roman historian Elena Varga calls ‘a record.’”
Set off the interrupting modifier
The phrase “comparing the tablets with official reports that emphasize commands and supplies” modifies Elena Varga and interrupts the subject-verb structure. It must be enclosed by a comma after “Varga” and another comma before “calls.”
Keep the restrictive clause with its antecedent
Within the participial phrase, “that emphasize commands and supplies” identifies which official reports are being discussed. This restrictive relative clause should not be separated from “official reports” by a comma.
Check the title and name
“Roman historian Elena Varga” is a single identifying noun phrase. Commas should not separate the essential name “Elena Varga” from the title that precedes it.