Though they are in different countries, the towns of Entebbe, Uganda, and Booue, Gabon, _____ They are among the rare places that sit almost directly on the equator.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Context: The blank closes a sentence that already has its concessive opener, "Though they are in different countries," and its subject, "the towns of Entebbe, Uganda, and Booue, Gabon"; the sentence that follows spells out what the shared feature is.
Answer: D) do have something in common.
Why? With the subject stated before the blank, the blank supplies only the predicate — inserting "they" would give the sentence a second subject and flip it into question word order. And because the sentence declares a fact that the next sentence then explains, it must close with a period rather than a question mark.
Traps:
- A) "do have something in common?" → the wording works, but a question mark on a declarative sentence does not.
- B) "do they have something in common." → interrogative word order and a redundant subject, closed as if it were a statement.
- C) "do they have something in common?" → repeats the subject and turns a statement into a question the passage never asks.