Question 140·Medium·Boundaries
The signatories of the Declaration of Sentiments—including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other early leaders of the women's rights _____ legal and social equality for women at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
For punctuation/boundary questions, first strip away extra descriptions to find the core subject and verb of the sentence. Then identify any interrupting or nonessential phrases (often introduced by words like "including," "which," or "who") and check how they are set off—commas, dashes, or parentheses must come in matching pairs. Finally, apply specific punctuation rules: colons must follow complete sentences, you generally should not separate a subject from its verb with a single comma, and you should not mix punctuation types when enclosing the same interrupter.
Hints
Find the main subject and verb
Temporarily ignore the phrase starting with "including" and see what the basic sentence looks like. What is the subject, and what is the main verb it should connect to?
Identify the interrupting phrase
Look at the words between "Declaration of Sentiments" and the blank. How is that extra information set off from the rest of the sentence at the beginning?
Match the punctuation around the interrupter
Writers usually use the same kind of punctuation mark on both sides of an interrupting phrase. There is already a mark before "including"—what kind of punctuation after "movement" would properly close that interruption and lead smoothly into "demanded"?
Step-by-step Explanation
Locate the main sentence structure
First, strip away the extra details to see the core sentence.
Without the interrupting phrase, the sentence is:
"The signatories of the Declaration of Sentiments _____ demanded legal and social equality for women at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention."
So the subject is "The signatories of the Declaration of Sentiments" and the main verb is "demanded." Whatever we put in the blank cannot improperly separate this subject and verb or break the sentence.
Recognize the nonessential interrupter
Now look at the full version with the extra information:
"The signatories of the Declaration of Sentiments—including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other early leaders of the women's rights movement _____ demanded..."
The part starting with "including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other early leaders of the women's rights movement" is extra, descriptive information. It is a nonessential interrupting phrase inside the main sentence.
That interrupter is introduced by an em dash right after "Sentiments": "Sentiments— including...". Nonessential interrupters set off by punctuation must be opened and closed with matching punctuation marks (commas with commas, dashes with dashes, or parentheses with parentheses).
Test each punctuation option for the interrupter
We need punctuation after "movement" that both:
- Closes the interrupting phrase that began with the em dash after "Sentiments," and
- Does not incorrectly put punctuation between the subject and its verb.
Check each option:
- A) "movement, demanded" would mean the interrupter starts with an em dash and ends with a comma—mismatched punctuation, which is not standard.
- B) "movement demanded" gives no closing punctuation for the interrupter, leaving the em dash after "Sentiments" hanging.
- C) "movement: demanded" uses a colon, which cannot be used to close a phrase started by an em dash and also must follow a complete sentence, which we do not yet have before it.
Only one option both matches the opening punctuation and keeps the subject–verb connection intact.
Choose the matching em dash
Because the nonessential phrase is introduced with an em dash, it must also be closed with an em dash before returning to the main verb "demanded."
So the correct completion is:
"The signatories of the Declaration of Sentiments—including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other early leaders of the women's rights movement—demanded legal and social equality for women at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention."
Thus, the correct answer is D) movement—demanded.