A punctuation question with extra information tests whether you can keep a description separate from the main sentence. Look back from the blank for where the description starts, even if it holds a list. Then cross out the description to check that the words left still form a complete sentence. For extra information in the middle of a sentence, the marks at both ends must match, whether they're commas, dashes, or parentheses. Marks inside the description don't close the whole description.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look back from the blank for where the novel's description begins. What punctuation sits at that point?
- Hint 2
Cross out the novel's description and read the historians' sentence straight through. How do they regard the publication, and which words complete that thought?
Step-by-step
Find the insert and match its marks
Step 1Find the description's limits
The dash after Moby-Dick leads into a sprawling novel that explores obsession, revenge, and the human, so let's find the limits of the extra information before choosing punctuation. What do those words describe? They describe the novel, and the list runs through the human condition before the sentence returns to calling the publication a landmark. That description is an insert, extra information inside the sentence, and it ends at the blank.
- Step 2
Read the sentence without the insert
What remains if we cross out that insert? The words many historians regard give us the subject and main verb, while a landmark in American literature tells how they view the publication. We can shrink the sentence to “Many historians regard the publication as a landmark,” which uses the pattern regard something as something. No comma belongs between the publication and as a landmark, because those words tell us how the historians view it and belong to the main sentence.
- Step 3
Close the insert with the matching mark
Since —a sprawling novel opens the insert with a dash, a dash has to close it too. Put the closing dash after condition, then let as lead straight into a landmark in American literature. The version condition—as closes the description without adding an unwanted break in the historians' sentence. Choice C.