The presence of superionic ice likely explains the lopsided, off-cente

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

There is a clear decision point following Neptune: semicolon, colon, comma, or “which,” so you could start there. The semi-colon in (A) is clearly incorrect, as what follows it is not an independent clause, so the original can be eliminated. For (B), the colon is also being misused (although not as obviously as the semi-colon in (A)) – what follows is not helping you understand what precedes it or providing a more detailed list for what precedes it; it is just extra, superfluous information. Given that, the appositive modifiers in (C) and (E) and the “which” clause in (D) would all be appropriate following “Uranus and Neptune.”

In deciding between (C), (D), (E) notice the difference at the end (which you could have done to start for all the answers) between “giants, and” “giants and” and “giants and were” and then figure out why that matters. In all of the answers but (D) and (E), the sentence states “planets that are known as ice giants and VISITED by the Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s” – talk about an illogical timeline! The “are” must go with both verbs so these answers are illogically saying that the “planets are known as this and ARE visited in the 1980s.” Since the tense has changed (they are still known as ice giants now but were visited in the past by the spacecraft) you must have “are known as this and WERE visited in the 1980s”. (D) commits the same error but does so with a series that is also not parallel: which ARE this, KNOWN as this, and visited in the 1980s. The correct answer is (E).