A transition punctuation question tests how you set off a linking word within or between sentences. Cover the transition, then check whether the words on each side can stand alone. Semicolons separate full sentences; paired commas or dashes set off an interruption. Without an interruption or sentence boundary, no added mark is needed. Use the printed marks to find the sentence structure, and check what each mark separates rather than relying on a pause you hear.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the words after the semicolon and find their subject and main verb.
- Hint 2
Cover however and check whether each side of the blank can stand alone. Then ask what job the comma before the blank is doing.
Step-by-step
Cover and split
Step 1Find the sentence across the blank
After the printed semicolon, cover however and split at the blank: the marketing department comes before it, and insisted comes after it. Can either side stand alone? The department is the subject, who does something, but it has no main verb until insisted, which tells us what it did. The words starting with insisted have no subject of their own, so neither side is a full sentence. One sentence runs across the blank, so we're punctuating a transition inside it.
- Step 2
Test the semicolon and dash
What would the semicolon and dash versions do here? A semicolon needs a full sentence on each side, but the version with a semicolon after however would cut the marketing department off from its verb, insisted, leaving both sides unable to stand alone. The version with a dash after however would put a comma on one side of the transition and a dash on the other, which don't form a matching pair.
- Step 3
Complete the comma pair
How do we finish the interruption begun by the comma before the blank? A comma starts this interruption, so a comma must close it. You can remove the transition and still read the sentence. The version with no mark after however leaves that comma pair unfinished before insisted. The version however, gives the closing comma and sets off the transition between the marketing department and its verb. Choice B.