What does pausing before a certain word in the middle of a sentence provide for the listener?
a signal that a sound effect will occur soon

a reason to go back and quickly reread the text

a cue that an important word might follow

a moment to look up new terms

The correct answer is C. Pausing before a certain word in the middle of a sentence signals that an important word might follow.

When delivering a speech, a speaker can pause effectively to highlight key ideas. A brief pause is a good signal to the audience that something important is about to be said.

Such a pause is brief -- only a second or two -- but it's enough for the members of the audience to realize that they need to listen carefully to what is ahead.

Pausing before a certain word in the middle of a sentence provides for the listener a cue that an important word might follow.

The correct use of pauses in speech has multiple benefits to the process of conveying an idea.

Pauses help your audience understand you, they  are also a good way to communicate emotion within your message, they control the overall pace of the speech too, apart from engaging your audience.

The other options are not correct because they don't represent any kind of communication technique in the tone and pace.