The sentence as it is written is a compound sentence, or two complete thoughts joined together to show their relationship. All compound sentences have to be joined by either a semicolon or a comma and a conjunction. The only answer choice that does this is "Young musicians often struggle with keeping the proper tempo in an ensemble; remedying this problem is one of the things that signals a musician's growing maturity."

The original sentence has a comma splice. Because the two clauses contrast each other, the conjunction but is most appropriate. One choice using but is wrong because the conjunction cannot be used with a semicolon. Another choice using but is wrong because the phrase "in cricket" is misplaced.

The sentence written above is a compound sentence, a sentence formed by two complete thoughts that are joined to show their relationship. The appropriate ways to join complete sentences is either with a semi-colon or a comma and a conjunction. The only answer choice that does this is "The politicians grew more and more nervous about the legislation passing with each day; former supporters were switching sides with regularity."

The sentence is a compound sentence, two complete thoughts that are joined in one sentence. All compound sentences need to have their two parts joined by either a semicolon or a comma and a conjunction; therefore, the correct answer is "Everyone was aware of the man's financial troubles, few knew just how deep in debt he truly was."

The sentence as it is written contains a comma splice, an error in which a comma is incorrectly used to combine two independent clauses. To fix the issue, one need only replace the offending comma with either a semicolon or a comma followed by a conjunction. The only answer choice that employs one of these options is "Many of the participants in the debate were completely unaware of the issues; they looked embarassed when they were asked questions about topics they had not reviewed."

Grammatically, it is best to avoid use of verbs ending in "-ing" where they are not necessary. The correct answer avoids this by using the phrase "owner who started." It is also the most efficient (and least wordy) option. 

The original sentence is a good example of a run-on sentence. Here, two independent clauses are incorrectly joined together with a comma. This is a type of error known as a "comma splice." Two independent clauses can be combined into a compound sentence using a semicolon or a comma followed by a conjunction. Alternatively, we can also make the last part of the sentence about Matt its own sentence, as it is an independent clause.

Inserting a comma between "nothing" and "but" is incorrect, as the sentence is one complete thought, and should not be broken up by a comma. The only thing that needs to be changed is that the comma needs to be removed from the sentence. Therefore, the correct answer choice is "The fourth place finisher at the Olympics receives nothing but the satisfaction of representing his or her country and competing."

The phrase "wherever he felt like it" is a dependent clause that explains more about the main body of the sentence. All dependent clauses must be set apart from the rest of the sentence by a comma. As such, "spitting constantly, wherever he felt like it" is the correct answer choice.

The sentence in the question is a compound sentence, one that joins two complete thoughts to show their relationship to each other. While the conjunction "as" connects the two parts, it also needs a comma to join the two thoughts together correctly. Therefore, the correct answer choice is "The issue proved to be a hot topic for years, as ten years later it was still being debated in leading universities."