Read the sentences. The Mississippi River flows from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Its source is a peaceful lake in Minnesota. It flows south. It flows past 10 states. Its mouth is in Louisiana. Which sentence best combines these ideas into a compound-complex sentence?

A compound-complex sentence has at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. In choice A, “The source of the Mississippi River is a peaceful lake in Minnesota” and “the river flows south past 10 states to its mouth in Louisiana” are independent clauses, joined by a semicolon. The clause “where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico” is dependent, so A is compound-complex.

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