Read the excerpt.After a strenuous climb, the hikers decided to make camp before reaching the summit; night was approaching rapidly.

The sentence has two independent clauses: “the hikers decided to make camp” and “night was approaching rapidly.” Each has a subject and a verb and can stand as a sentence, and the semicolon joins them. “After a strenuous climb” and “before reaching the summit” give timing information; neither is an independent clause. So the correct choice is “It contains two independent clauses.”

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