A list punctuation question tests how you separate whole items when one item contains a smaller list. First, find the job of the blank by tracing where each whole item starts and ends. Then look ahead for the separator the sentence already uses. Commas separate items with no commas inside them; semicolons separate items when any item contains commas. Use that pattern between whole items, rather than treating punctuation inside an item as the list’s separator.
Hints
- Hint 1
Follow the journalist’s verbs from visited through published. Which words belong to each thing the journalist did?
- Hint 2
Look for the separator before the last item. Apply that pattern at the blank, keeping punctuation inside an item separate from punctuation between whole items.
Step-by-step
Find the larger list
Step 1Find what the blank separates
The commas in Jordan, Lebanon, and separate countries, but what comes after the last country? To punctuate the blank, let’s follow the verbs through the sentence: the journalist visited camps, compiled testimonies, and published reports. They all share the subject the investigative journalist, so the main list is three things the journalist did, not three countries. The countries belong inside the first larger item, which includes the visit to the camps and all three countries. The blank marks where that whole item ends.
- Step 2
Read the list’s existing pattern
What mark already divides the larger items? In families; and published, a semicolon separates compiling testimonies from publishing reports. Semicolons separate list items when an item contains commas, even when those items share one subject. A comma after the final country would mix commas inside the first item with the mark between larger items, and it wouldn’t copy the separator before the last item.
- Step 3
Test whether the next item explains the first
Could a colon or a dash work after the last country? A colon introduces a list or explanation after a full sentence; a dash can mark a break or add emphasis. Here, compiled firsthand testimonies from displaced families names another thing the journalist did, not an explanation of visiting camps, so we need the separator already used between the larger list’s items. The colon and dash versions don’t follow that pattern. Greece; puts the list’s separator between the first and second things the journalist did. Choice B.