practical english

Question

The sentence is what type of sentence? While the police are understaffed and politicians look the other way, urbun crime is getting worse. a) simple b) compound c) complex d) compound-complex

Answer 1

I would say the correct answer here is "c) complex." There is not just one but arguably two dependent/subordinate clauses in While the police are understaffed and politicians look the other way, that is, one can make a case that there is an "understood" while before the second clause, politicians look the other way, but the number of subordinate/dependent clauses doesn't matter here; because there is definitely only one main clause, namely urbun [sic] crime is getting worse, the entire sentence cannot be compound but the presence of at least one dependent/subordinate clause makes it complex. (Cf. a sentence like Because the police are understaffed, urban crime is getting worse and businesses are leaving the city which is compound-complex because not only is there a subordinate/dependent clause, Because the police are understaffed, but also two main clauses, i.e., urban crime is getting worse and businesses are leaving the city.)