The decorated cave of Pont d’Arc, which contains pictorial drawings carbon-dated to the Aurignacian period (30,000 to 32,000 BP), and is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France and extends to an area of approximately 8,500 square meters.
(A) and is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France and
(B) is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France,
(C) and is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France, which
(D) is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France and
(E) which is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France, it
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Answer: D
Sentence vs. Fragment, Non-Essential Clause
Start by crossing out the non-essential clause, which contains pictorial drawings carbon-dated to the Aurignacian period (30,000 to 32,000 BP). Although the clause is not included in the underlined portion, eliminating it makes the sentence much easier to work with. With the non-essential clause removed, you can see that (A), (C), and (E) all do not make sense. As a general rule, non-essential clauses are followed by verbs; the presence of a conjunction such as and, or a pronoun such as which, after a non-essential clause almost always signals an ungrammatical construction and thus an incorrect answer.
Be careful with (B). This answer makes perfect grammatical sense on its own, but a comma alone cannot be placed between the two items at the end of the sentence: it is incorrect to say The decorated cave at Pont d’Arc…is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France, extends to an area of approximately 8,500 square meters. (D) provides the correct construction: The decorated cave at Pont d’Arc…is located in a limestone plateau of the meandering Ardèche River in southern France and extends to an area of approximately 8,500 square meters.
