"except" as a conjunction

[xycdfr]

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

(A) excepting for
(B) except in
(C) but except in
(D) but excepting for
(E) with the exception of

Correct Answer is C.

The two standalone sentences "Mauritius...years" and "excepting...island" are set off by but as an coordinate conjunction. This is without any question.

I look up in the dictionary, except can also be a conjunction, so my question is what is the proper usage of except when it is a conjunction. if except is a conjunction, it must be followed by "that". eg. the world is meaningless except that I love you.

so if choice B is reconstructed as "Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, except that the English language was never really spoken on the island", it will be a correct sentence, regardless the meaning loss in " domains of administration and teaching"

[RonPurewal]

Please read the forum rules before posting; you're actually breaking three of those rules here.

* We need the original source of the problem.

* If the sentence comes from a GMAT-related source, we need the entire original text of the problem, with all answer choices.

* The title of the thread should consist of the first few words of the problem text.

Thanks.