What is the syntax for using commas inside quotation marks when accompanied by a clause?

Question

Here is an example:

Yesterday, she called me a "turnip-toothed thimble whacker", and I think it's because of her time at Gramp's farm.

OR

Yesterday, she called me a "turnip-toothed thimble whacker," and I think it's because of her time at Gramp's farm.

Another question of this kind surfaced on a recent SAT Writing and Language portion. I answered incorrectly because I assumed when referencing spoken word as a short dependent phrase, the comma would be on the outside of the quotation marks instead of on the inside, which signifies active speech, such as:

"Don't call me a turnip-toothed thimble whacker," I stated.

The correct answer ended up being the option with the comma inside the quotations followed by an "and".

Thank you!

Answer 1

Imagine that you are reading this sentence without the quotation marks, would a comma be needed or not? Since you have an independent clause, or complete sentence, after the conjunction (and) a comma would be needed. If the quotation marks were not there, you would put a comma after the word "whacker" anyway, wouldn't you? By adding a quotation mark between the end of the word and the new punctuation, you have separated the comma from the word that it is intended to follow - therefore, it needs to be inside the quotation marks with the word itself.

This is the same rule of a sentence ending in a quotation - the period would come before the final "