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Question

Difficulty: EasySemicolons

The museum will close early today; the staff is preparing for a private gallery opening.

Which of the following choices best replaces the underlined portion of the sentence?

  1. NO CHANGEAnswer
  2. B
    today, the staff is
  3. C
    today; the staff preparing
  4. D
    today; because the staff is

Answer

NO CHANGE
The original phrasing correctly uses a semicolon to join two independent clauses. Both 'The museum will close early today' and 'the staff is preparing for a private gallery opening' are complete thoughts that can stand alone as sentences. A semicolon is the proper punctuation mark to connect them without a coordinating conjunction.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the structure of the clauses surrounding the underlined punctuation.
The clause before the punctuation ('The museum will close early today') is independent. The clause after the punctuation ('the staff is preparing for a private gallery opening') is also independent.
Determining whether the clauses are independent or dependent dictates the correct punctuation.
2
Evaluate the punctuation rules for joining two independent clauses.
Two independent clauses can be joined by a semicolon alone, or by a comma combined with a coordinating conjunction.
This helps eliminate choices that violate standard sentence structure rules.
3
Analyze each option to see which one correctly applies these rules.
The original sentence correctly uses a semicolon to join the two independent clauses, whereas the other options create either a comma splice or fragments.
This guarantees that only the grammatically correct option is selected.

Key Concept

Semicolons
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Topics

Semicolons

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