Answer: "team; her".  A semicolon is used to separate two independent clauses (independent clauses are two thoughts that could each be their own sentence).  You cannot simply use a comma to perform this task, so “team, her” is incorrect. If you use a period you must capitalize the next word, so “team. her” is incorrect. And without any punctuation the reader cannot easily tell where one thought ends and the next begins, so “team her” leads to a run-on sentence and is incorrect.

Answer: “distances, but Shannon” One way to separate independent clauses is with a comma plus a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so - you can use the acronym FANBOYS to remember them). Here you have two complete thoughts: “many people dislike running long distances” and “Shannon seems to really enjoy it.” And every answer choice includes the coordinating conjunction “but.” This calls for the comma + but construction, so “Many people dislike running long distances, but Shannon seems to really enjoy it” is correct.

Answer: NO CHANGE. When a list contains several long elements, as this list does, it is appropriate to use semicolons to separate those elements. Here note that the second element (“her sister, Eliza, is a New York City socialite…”) even includes its own commas around the word “Eliza” (used to modify “her sister”) - this helps to demonstrate the case for using semicolons so that commas within the long phrases in each element don’t get confused as new elements in the list.  Among the incorrect answer choices, one uses no punctuation at all and creates a very long, very hard to read sentence. Similarly, another places the word “and” between the elements, but that’s incorrect (you wouldn’t say “I play basketball and soccer and baseball” - you’d separate the sports with punctuation and use “and” before the last one). And one choice mixes commas between elements (“, and her sister Eliza”) and a semicolon between others (“; and her sister Peggy”). When separating items in a long list you can choose to separate the items with commas or with semicolons, but you cannot use one of each. Plus that sentence also repeats the multiple “and” problem.

Answer: "Most people thought that the performance was a disaster, but Allysin was proud of her solo at the end of Act One." The correct answer uses a single comma between “disaster, but” to indicate that there are two independent clauses (essentially complete sentences) going on: 1) most people thought that the performance was a disaster, and 2) Allysin was proud of her own performance.  The comma creates a pause between those thoughts to help the reader know that they’re separate, and the coordinating conjunction “but” highlights that the two thoughts oppose each other (people thought it was bad, but she thought it was good).

A semicolon is used to separate two independent clauses (independent clauses are two thoughts that could each be their own sentence).  You cannot simply use a comma to perform this task, so “team, her” is incorrect.  If you use a period you must capitalize the next word, so “team. her” is incorrect. And without any punctuation the reader cannot easily tell where one thought ends and the next begins, so “team her” leads to a run-on sentence and is incorrect.

 Notice that the main point of this sentence is that “Dev has become an expert at algebra thanks to his teacher.”  When properly punctuated, the sentence uses “who had always disliked math” as an extra modifying phrase to tell us more about Dev, and “Mrs. Robinson” as an extra description of his teacher. Modifiers/descriptions are often set apart by commas to tell the reader that that information is additional - the reader doesn’t really need to know that information so they can omit it if they’re reading quickly, but if they do want to read it it will help them even-better understand the sentence.

When a sentence features a list, the items in the list should be separated by commas so that the reader can pause between items and so that it is clear which items are in the list. Here there are three items in the list: swim a mile, bike 50 miles, and then run 10 miles. So those items should have commas between them. Note that if you were to use commas around the number of miles, it treats the distance as separate items in the list, and that is not correct.  It is also important here to separate the phrase “while competing in a triathlon” as a modifying phrase describing when these actions took place for Ian. The comma after “triathlon” and before “Ian” lets the reader know that the first few words of the sentence are a descriptive phrase.

 Whenever you see two nouns (or noun phases) directly next to each other, like “Kaitlyn” and “a star gymnast,” there’s a good chance that one of them is being used to describe the other (called an appositive modifier).  This type of modifier should be separated by a comma so that the reader can tell the roles of each noun.  Here that means that “a star gymnast,” a description to tell us more about Kaitlyn, should be separated by commas. Another important use of commas is to (along with coordinating conjunctions like “but” or “and”) separate independent clauses, which we have here.  Two sentences could stand alone: “Kaitlyn made the national team as a sophomore” and “she decided not to join until the summer,” so separating them with a comma plus the coordinating conjunction “but” makes it clear to the reader that there are two separate but related clauses.

When a sentence features two independent clauses - two phrases that could each stand alone as complete sentences with a subject and verb - the two most common and correct ways to separate them are:

1. With a comma plus a coordinating conjunction (such as “or,” “and,” or “but”)

2. With a semicolon

You cannot, however, simply put a comma between them without a coordinating conjunction. Therefore, the sentence that includes the comma but not a conjunction is the improperly crafted sentence.

Answer: NO CHANGE  When a sentence features a list, the items should be separated by commas to help the reader keep the items organized.  This means that the list should read “a scavenger hunt, a three-legged race, and a sleepover”  It is also important to note that with colons and dashes, when they set up a list they need to be used at the end of a complete clause. Here “Emiliy’s birthday party included” is not a complete clause, so you cannot use a colon or dash after “included” to set up the list.  You could, however, use a colon or dash after “Emily’s birthday party included three exciting elements,” for example, as that would be a complete clause.