The Official SAT Question of the Day™

Part of the following sentence is italics; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.

Scenes from the everyday lives of African Americans, which are realistically depicted in the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner.

(A) Scenes from the everyday lives of African Americans, which are realistically depicted in the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner.
(B) Scenes from the everyday lives of African Americans being realistically depicted in the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner.
(C) The paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner realistically depict scenes from the everyday lives of African Americans.
(D) Henry Ossawa Tanner, in his realistic paintings, depicting scenes from the everyday lives of African Americans.
(E) Henry Ossawa Tanner, whose paintings realistically depict scenes from the everyday lives of African Americans.

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:
For a sentence to be grammatically complete, it must include both a subject and a main verb. When a sentence lacks either a subject or a main verb, the result is a sentence fragment. In this example all options but (C) are sentence fragments.

In (A), the phrase "Scenes... Americans " is modified by the dependent clause "which... Tanner," but there is no main verb.
In (B), the phrase "Scenes ... Tanner" contains no main verb.
In (D), the noun "Henry Ossawa Tanner " is modified by "depicting " but is not combined with a main verb.
And in (E), the noun "Henry Ossawa Tanner" is modified by the dependent clause "whose ... Americans " but not combined with a main verb.
(C) is correct. It is the only choice in which a subject ("The paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner") is combined with a verb ("depict") to express a complete thought.