Question

The English novelist Virginia Woolf, who pioneered the use of stream of consciousness in fiction, was a prolific writer, and the influence of her fiction and nonfiction on her contemporaries was both powerful and pervasive.

Which statements best describe this sentence? Select three options.

It is a complex sentence.
It contains a restrictive clause.
It is a compound-complex sentence.
It contains a nonrestrictive clause.
It links three clauses to add variety to a text.

Answer 1

Correct choices (with brief explanations):

- It contains a nonrestrictive clause. — The phrase "who pioneered the use of stream of consciousness in fiction" is set off by commas and gives extra information about Virginia Woolf, so it’s nonrestrictive.

- It is a compound-complex sentence. — There are two independent clauses joined by "and" and one dependent (relative) clause, which fits the compound-complex definition.

- It links three clauses to add variety to a text. — The sentence contains three clauses (two independent + one dependent) that are linked together.

Incorrect choices:
- It is a complex sentence. — A complex sentence has one independent clause and at least one dependent clause; this sentence has two independent clauses, so it’s not just complex.
- It contains a restrictive clause. — The relative clause is nonrestrictive (set off by commas), not restrictive.