Question 153·Hard·Boundaries
In 2019, the World Heritage Committee added three new sites—the Plain of Jars (Laos), the Paraty and Ilha Grande region (Brazil), and the Bagaya Monastery (______—to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
For punctuation and boundary questions, always read a little before and after the blank to see what punctuation the sentence already provides. Then, match any repeated structure (like items in a list with parentheses) exactly: if the first two items show a pattern, the third should follow it. Avoid double punctuation (like comma+dash or two dashes) and remember that the last item in a list usually does not take a comma unless the sentence clearly needs one.
Hints
Compare with the earlier country names
Look at how "Laos" and "Brazil" appear in the sentence. How are they set off from the rest of the text?
Notice the punctuation after the blank
Right after the blank, there is already a dash before "to UNESCO’s World Heritage List." Ask yourself: do you need to add another dash or comma in the blank, or is that punctuation already taken care of?
Think about the end of a list
This is the third and final item in the list of sites. Should there be a comma after the last item, or does the list end directly before the dash?
Step-by-step Explanation
See the overall sentence pattern
Focus on the structure around the list of sites:
- "three new sites—the Plain of Jars (Laos), the Paraty and Ilha Grande region (Brazil), and the Bagaya Monastery (______— to UNESCO’s World Heritage List."
The dash after "sites—" starts an appositive that lists and explains the three sites, and the dash just before "to UNESCO’s" ends that appositive.
Match the pattern of the first two items
Look at how the countries are given for the first two sites:
- Plain of Jars (Laos),
- Paraty and Ilha Grande region (Brazil),
Each country name is inside parentheses, and then the punctuation that separates items in the list (a comma) comes after the closing parenthesis (except for the last item, which doesn’t need a comma because the list ends). The third site should follow the same pattern: Bagaya Monastery (country), with the country fully enclosed in parentheses.
Check what punctuation is already provided after the blank
In the sentence, the text after the blank is "—to UNESCO’s World Heritage List."
That means:
- The dash after the country name is already printed in the sentence.
- We only need to close the parenthesis in the blank.
- Because this is the last item in the list, we do not need a comma after it.
So, in the blank, we need the country name followed immediately by just the closing parenthesis—no comma and no extra dash. The choice that does exactly that is the correct answer.