<p>The North American continent, first colonized by people from Siberia, crossing the now sunken land bridge between Siberia and Alaska about 15,000 years ago.</p>
<p>(A) The North American continent, first colonized by people from Siberia, crossing
(B) People from Siberia first colonized the North American continent, who crossed
(C) First colonized by people from Siberia was the North American continent, they crossed
(D) First colonized by people from Siberia, who crossed the North American continent,
(E) The North American continent was first colonized by people from Siberia, who crossed</p>
<p>I was stuck between B and E... B does not make sense because the "who" is not next to the subject "people" but then E does not make sense because you create passive voice.</p>
<p>The true answer is E, but I picked B first... just wanted an explanation.</p>
<p>You are right, that (E) uses the passive voice, which is to be avoided, however choice (B) is ungrammatical. Since choice (E) is grammatically correct (just stylistically awkward) you have to choose (E). </p>
<p>Ungrammatical choices are illegal choices.</p>
<p>Many people will say “Passive voice is bad” in writing, but I feel it can add variety if used appropriately. Anyhow, don’t eliminate a choice just because it uses a passive voice, Greed says it is stylistically awkward, but the key word is ‘stylistically’, so it may not seem so awkward to everyone. Choice B contains a relative pronoun “who” and it should have an antecedent before it (as per its name). Choice B makes it seem like the continent was the ‘who’ crossing the bridge.
In choice E, note how the who describes the people
the people (from Siberia), who crossed…</p>
<p>so my reason for not picking B was correct, because “who” was not next to “people” so the pronoun is vague in describing the antecedent</p>