In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil

The answer is A IMO.

A) Act; the court ruled that
No errors.

B) Act, which ruled that
which could refer to provisions of the Communications Decency Act or the Communications Decency Act. But both are incorrect.
We want to refer supreme court.

C) Act, with a ruling that
Hmm. A contender but the usage of with actually doesn't make sense. Lets try the slash-and-burn method and try to reduce the sentence.
A 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court surprised... with a ruling that.
“With” is used when the noun after “with” attaches to the subject of preceding clause.
Here the subject is 9-0 ruling and not the court . Therefore incorrect

D) Act; they ruled that
No antecedent for they

E) Act and they ruled
No antecedent for they

MEANING
A ruling surprised some as it [the ruling] struck down provisions of an Act.
Who ruled? The court, not the Act, the provisions, or they (observers);

B) "which" ref to "Act" or "provisions of the Act" imps one or the other "ruled", unintended;
C) "a ruling struck down X, with a ruling" unintended;
D) "they" who? observers? "a ruling" is singular, unintended;
E) "a ruling [sing] struck down… and they [plural]" sva error and unintended;

Ans (A)

Imo. A

In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act; the court ruled that the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.

A) Act; the court ruled that - Seems no error, noun - court mentioned appropriately and two independent clauses separated by semicolon. Hold it.

B) Act, which ruled that - Pronoun error, which refers to CDA - means CDA ruled that the law- nonsensical meaning.

C) Act, with a ruling that - preposition immediately preceding comma usually refers to the verb or action of preceding clause (in some cases noun of preceding clause). So, here usage of with is incorrect and it distorts the meaning also, e.g. ACLU surprised some people as it (ruling) struck down provisions of CDA, with a ruling that....

D) Act; they ruled that - Pronoun error as they can refer to observers, but it's not intended in the original sentence.

E) Act and they ruled - Parallelism and pronoun error.

In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act; the court ruled that the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.

Meaning: The Supreme Court made a unanimous ruling in 1997. This ruling canceled an Act. The canceled Act, per the ruling, violated aspects of the freedom of speech.

Option A: In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act; the court ruled that the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.
Because of the semi-colon, I expect to see a main clause and option A has a main clause after the semi-colon: the court ruled. That acts as a subordinating conjunction to appropriately sub-ordinate the main clause the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment. Everything is okay in option A. Lets keep A.

Option B: In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act, which ruled that the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.
which ruled modifies the Communications Decency Act. It is not the Act which ruled, but rather the Court. That, on the other hand, subordinates the main clause the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment. Eliminate Option B because of the modifier error.

Option C: In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act, with a ruling that the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.
What does with a ruling modify? Is it intended to modify the Supreme Court? If it is intended to modify the Supreme Court, then there is a need to restate the court to precede with a ruling, in which case the that clause modifies ruling. Eliminate option C as a result of the incomplete modification.

Option D: In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act; they ruled that the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.
The logical antecedent for they, which is plural, is the Supreme Court, which is singular. There is a pronoun error in option D. Eliminate option D.

Option E: In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act and[color=#ff0000] they[/color] ruled the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.
Just as in option D, option E also has a pronoun error. Instead of a singular pronoun, a plural pronoun they is used to refer to the singular noun The Supreme Court. Aside the pronoun error, option E also has a parallelism error. What is they ruled the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment parallel to? There are punctuation errors in option E which distorts the sentence. Eliminate option E.

The answer is option E.

In 1997, a 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union surprised some observers as it struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act; the court ruled that the law violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment.


A) Act; the court ruled that>>> precise and correct. cannot find any problem.

B) Act, which ruled that>>> which denotes the Act, but the verb ruled is associated with the Supreme Court.

C) Act, with a ruling that>>>distorts the meaning of the original sentence. with should be after some verb which is missing here.

D) Act; they ruled that>>>they have no clear antecedent. If it is indicating observers, then the sentence will lose intended meaning.

E) Act and they ruled>>> same as D.

Correct answer is A.

A) Act; the court ruled that Looks good. 2 Independent clauses joined with semi-colon. "The court ruled" leaves no room for ambiguity. Looks fine overall.

B) Act, which ruled that - The Act did not rule anything. So this is wrong.

C) Act, with a ruling that - The usage of "with" is inappropriate here. I don't know what more to explain about this option. Sorry

D) Act; they ruled that - It is the Court that ruled. So They is incorrect.

E) Act and they ruled Same as D. Plus "and" creates a parallelism that is not needed.

Well, it’s a clear A. Whenever you see a semicolon ask yourself if it makes logical sense to have an independent clause because that is the only reason to have a semi colon as a separator.

In this question, the first clause speaks about the ruling and the other one says the court (sub) ruled out and blah blah.
Any pronoun replacing it (like mentioned in the other options) modifies the meaning by saying that the act ruled out. But the meaning is the court ruled out the act.

Go for A

Posted from my mobile device

For some reason, I could not submit the explanation with colors applied to text. I was getting some SQL errors and my message was not appearing even in Preview... So I ended up typing a new reply without using any colors (sorry for having a very dry post).

Quick read-through reveals that the sentence tests meaning and sentence structure. The first non-underlined part says that In 1997 a new ruling (law) surprised observers as it struck down provisions of some Act. The second portion of the sentence provides clarification (more information) regarding what happened. So, we deal with two independent clauses, which can be connected by a semicolon.

A) Act; the court ruled that
This option looks good. It matches our pre-thinking.

B) Act, which ruled that
The Act that was struck down did not rule anything. In fact, a new rule struck down the Act.

C) Act, with a ruling that
A modifier that starts with "with a ruling" is not as good as option (A).

D) Act; they ruled that
Who on Earth is they!? Observers? No, that makes no sense.

E) Act and they ruled
Same error as in (D). Also, we would need a comma to connect two independent clauses.

The official explanation is here.