The correctly punctuated sentence is C, that is, "one day Nick's roommate brought home a ferret; he'd seen it at a pet store and couldn't resist it". When a semicolon is used to link two separate ideas, these ideas are given the same degree of importance, they are considered to be equals.
A and B are grammatically incorrect and D is wrongly punctuated. In A, the subordinate clause does not have a subject (it should be "agent Orange, <u>which i</u>s believed to be..."). The same happens in B (Johnny Cash, <u>who </u>auditioned for a record producer signing mainly gospel tunes, was told...). In D, there should be a colon after the noun "fetal alcohol syndrome".
<span>D. Michael Dorris's book The Broken Cord made readers more aware of the problem of fetal alcohol syndrome, one of his adopted sons was diagnosed with this condition. </span>
