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Difficulty: HardEnd-of-Sentence Punctuation

Deep within the dense canopy of the Guatemalan jungle, archaeologists have long struggled to locate ancient Maya structures. Recently, however, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology has revolutionized the field, researchers fire millions of laser pulses from an airplane to map the ground beneath the foliage. This method has revealed thousands of previously hidden ruins, including pyramids, highways, and defensive walls.

Which of the following choices best punctuates the underlined portion of the passage?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. B
    field. Researchers firing
  3. field; researchers fireAnswer
  4. D
    field; researchers firing

Answer

field; researchers fire
The semicolon is used to separate two independent clauses that are closely related. The clause before the punctuation ('Recently, however, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology has revolutionized the field') and the clause after ('researchers fire millions of laser pulses...') are both independent because they each contain a subject and a verb and express a complete thought. The option 'field; researchers fire' correctly joins these two independent clauses without introducing grammatical errors.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the clause before the underline.
The clause 'Recently, however, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology has revolutionized the field' is independent because it contains a subject (technology) and a verb (has revolutionized) and expresses a complete thought.
Identifying clause types is necessary to determine proper punctuation at sentence boundaries.
2
Analyze the clause after the underline.
The clause 'researchers fire millions of laser pulses from an airplane to map the ground beneath the foliage' is also independent because it has a subject (researchers) and a verb (fire) and can stand alone as a sentence.
This determines whether the punctuation must separate two independent clauses.
3
Evaluate the punctuation and grammatical structure of the options.
Joining two independent clauses requires a semicolon, a period, or a comma with a coordinating conjunction. The option 'field; researchers fire' correctly uses a semicolon and maintains the conjugated verb 'fire'.
This eliminates options that create comma splices, fragments, or incorrect semicolon usage.

Key Concept

End-of-Sentence Punctuation
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

End-of-Sentence Punctuation

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