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Question

Difficulty: MediumConjunctions and Clause Structure

Supply the exact conjunction required to complete the sentence correctly.

Answer:No sooner had the regulatory agency announced the new policy directives 【than】 the affected financial institutions initiated full system compliance audits.

Answer

than
In standard English grammar, the correlative expression 'no sooner' must be paired with the subordinating conjunction 'than' to introduce the subsequent clause. Using any other conjunction disrupts the established comparative structure.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the initial correlative element and clause structure of the sentence.
The sentence begins with the negative adverbial correlative phrase 'No sooner had', which triggers subject-auxiliary inversion in the main clause.
Recognizing negative inversion helps identify the paired conjunction required to complete the correlative relationship.
2
Determine the correct subordinating conjunction paired with 'no sooner'.
The correlative pair for 'no sooner' is strictly 'than'.
'No sooner' expresses a temporal comparative relationship where the second event immediately follows the first, requiring 'than' to introduce the secondary clause.

Key Concept

Correlative Conjunctions and Negative Inversion ('No sooner... than')
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Topics

Conjunctions and Clause Structure

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