Quote:
Maggot therapy, the use of maggots to clear away necrotic tissue,
as a method of the debridement of wounds, it was well established as early as 200 CE, but until about 40 years ago doctors did not realize that the maggots could help eliminate several different types of drug resistant bacteria.
(A) as a method of the debridement of wounds, it was well established
(B) as a method of the debridement of wounds well established
(C) was a well-established method of wound debridement
(D) was a well-established method of debriding wounds that was
(E) had been a method of wound debridement, well established
Experts Global Explanation:
ModifierRemember, removing extra information between two commas should yield a complete sentence. In this sentence, the phrase “the use of maggots to clear away necrotic tissue” between the two commas is extra information about “Maggot therapy”; hence, removing this information must yield a complete sentence. Multiple answer choices (A, B) can be eliminated by this approach.
A. The phrase “the use of maggots to clear away necrotic tissue” between the two commas is extra information about “Maggot therapy”; hence, removing this information must yield a complete sentence; doing so on this answer choice leads to an incomplete sentence. Besides, this answer choice suffers from a redundancy; the pronoun “it” is unnecessary, as the subject of the clause can be directly modified by the phrase “was well established”.
B. The phrase “the use of maggots to clear away necrotic tissue” between the two commas is extra information about “Maggot therapy”; hence, removing this information must yield a complete sentence; doing so on this answer choice leads to an incomplete sentence. Besides, this answer choice incorrectly links a dependent clause to an independent clause with a comma followed by the conjunction “but” (such usage can only connect two independent clauses); Option B leads to this error because it has no active verb, rendering the first clause of this sentence a dependent one.
C. In this answer choice, removing the extra information “the use of maggots to clear away necrotic tissue” between the two commas leads to a complete sentence. This answer choice maintains proper tense and modifier use to form a complete sentence that conveys the intended meaning; as both clauses in this sentence are independent, the use of the “comma + but” construction to link them is appropriate. Additionally, Option C is free of awkwardness and redundancy.
D. This answer choice incorrectly and illogically modifies the noun phrase “method of debriding wounds” with the phrase “that was as early as 200 CE”; this usage implies that the method spontaneously formed as early as 200 CE.
E. This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense (marked by the use of the verb “had”) to refer to the existence of maggot therapy as a method of wound debridement; the past perfect tense is only used to refer to actions that ended in the past and do not affect the present, and the second clause of this sentence implies that maggot therapy is still in use.
C is the best answer choice.