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Where Does the Semicolon Fit Best? 1604 Views


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Description:

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 2, Problem 3. Where does the semicolon fit best?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Mountain Climbing. Because your Everest

00:08

is the actual Everest.

00:12

They couldn't make it to the peak and back; before dark they decided to camp for the night.

00:28

Scary, what if they get eaten by bears, or get poison oak, or get snatched by mountain

00:33

trolls? Okay, it's possible we watch too much Lord of the Rings.

00:37

Let's see if we can at least fix the semicolons in this sentence to lift our campers' spirits...

00:41

Well, there are four possible places that the semicolon can go.

00:45

On either side of the semicolon, the clause has to stand alone, so let's check each place

00:51

to see if it forms two complete thoughts. In C, the first clause makes sense, but the

00:56

second is a confusing mess. The sentence "to the peak and back before

01:00

dark they decided to camp for the night" doesn't work. At all.

01:04

B is a similar situation. Although "They couldn't make it to the peak" works as a complete sentence,

01:10

"and back before dark they decided to camp for the night" does not.

01:16

A? "Before dark they decided to camp for the night" isn't a complete sentence either. Buh-bye.

01:24

Although those sentences were painful to read, at least we're left with one good answer.

01:28

The last one of the bunch, D, forms two complete thoughts that are independent clauses, and

01:33

separates them with a semicolon. Much the same way that mountain troll plans

01:36

to separate the campers' heads from their bodies.

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