Discovered in a desert cave in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls are remarkably well-preserved ancient manuscripts. Despite being over two...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

Sentence 1:

• Discovered in a desert cave in 1947,
• the Dead Sea Scrolls are remarkably well-preserved ancient manuscripts.

Sentence 2:

• Despite being over two thousand years old,
• (?) provide invaluable insights into religious practices and daily life in ancient times.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start with the first sentence:

• 'Discovered in a desert cave in 1947'
  • This tells us when and where something was found
• 'the Dead Sea Scrolls'
  • This is what was discovered - notice this is plural: "Scrolls" (multiple documents)
• 'are remarkably well-preserved ancient manuscripts'
  • This tells us what they are - ancient manuscripts in great condition

So the first sentence establishes: The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient manuscripts found in 1947.

Now the second sentence begins:

• 'Despite being over two thousand years old'
  • This sets up a contrast - even though they're so old...

Now here's where we need to fill in the blank. The sentence continues with 'provide invaluable insights into religious practices and daily life in ancient times.'

Let's look at our choices:

1. they
2. it
3. that
4. he

What do we need here? We need a pronoun that refers back to "the Dead Sea Scrolls" from the first sentence.

What do we notice?

• "The Dead Sea Scrolls" is a plural noun
  • We're talking about multiple manuscripts
• The verb that follows the blank is "provide"
  • This is a plural verb form (not "provides")
• So we need a plural pronoun that:
  • Refers to things (not people)
  • Matches the plural noun "scrolls"
  • Works with the plural verb "provide"

The correct answer is A. they

"They" is the plural pronoun that correctly refers back to "the Dead Sea Scrolls."

The complete meaning: Even though the Dead Sea Scrolls are over 2,000 years old, they still give us valuable information about religious practices and daily life in ancient times.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Making Pronouns Match Their Antecedents

When you use a pronoun to refer back to something mentioned earlier (called an antecedent in grammar terms), the pronoun must match what it's referring to in two key ways:

Number matching:

• Plural antecedent: The manuscripts are valuable → they are valuable
• Singular antecedent: The manuscript is valuable → it is valuable

Type matching:

• Things: The scrolls were discovered → they were discovered
• People: The archaeologist made a discovery → he/she made a discovery

In this question:

• Antecedent: "the Dead Sea Scrolls" (plural things)
• Correct pronoun: "they" (plural pronoun for things)
• The pronoun connects across sentences: Sentence 1 introduces the scrolls, Sentence 2 refers back to them with "they"