Question 23·Medium·Boundaries
The community garden initiative, originally implemented by a small group of _____ has now expanded to encompass more than fifty neighborhood plots.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
For punctuation and boundary questions, first strip the sentence down to its core subject and verb to see the main clause. Then identify any extra (nonessential) phrases that need to be set off as a unit. Check whether the text before a punctuation mark is a complete sentence: if it isn’t, avoid colons or dashes, which typically require a full clause before them. Finally, choose punctuation that correctly closes or connects phrases without breaking the subject–verb relationship.
Hints
Find the main subject and verb
Ignore the middle description for a moment and identify the basic sentence: what is the main thing being talked about, and what is it doing?
Look at the phrase between the commas
Notice that there is already a comma before "originally." Is the phrase starting at "originally" essential to understand the sentence, or is it extra information about the initiative?
Check if the part before the blank is a full sentence
Read from the beginning up to the blank. Does that part contain a complete thought with both subject and main verb, or is the main verb still coming later?
Match the punctuation to the structure
Remember that colons and dashes usually come after a complete sentence, while commas can be used to set off extra information within a sentence. Which punctuation best fits that role here?
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the core sentence
Strip away the extra description to see the main sentence structure.
- Full sentence:
The community garden initiative, originally implemented by a small group of volunteers _____ has now expanded to encompass more than fifty neighborhood plots. - Core sentence (without the descriptive middle):
The community garden initiative has now expanded to encompass more than fifty neighborhood plots.
So, the main subject is "The community garden initiative" and the main verb is "has now expanded." Everything between them is extra description.
Recognize the nonessential (extra) phrase
The words "originally implemented by a small group of volunteers" describe the initiative but are not necessary to make the sentence complete.
This is a nonessential modifier (extra information). In Standard English, this type of phrase is usually set off with a pair of punctuation marks, most commonly commas: one before the phrase and one after it.
We already have a comma before "originally," so we likely need matching punctuation after "volunteers" to close the phrase.
Review what colon, dash, and comma require
Now think about how each punctuation mark works in the answer choices:
- A colon (:) usually follows a complete sentence and introduces an explanation, list, or example.
- A dash (—) can also follow a complete sentence to add an abrupt explanation or extra information.
- A comma (,) can close off a nonessential phrase and then let the main sentence continue.
Ask: Is everything before the blank a complete sentence by itself?
Test if the part before the blank is a complete sentence
Look at the text before the blank:
The community garden initiative, originally implemented by a small group of volunteers
This part does not have the main verb yet. The verb "has now expanded" comes after the blank.
Because it is not a complete sentence, we cannot correctly use a colon or a dash here. We need punctuation that simply closes the nonessential phrase and connects back to the verb.
Choose the punctuation that correctly closes the phrase
We need to:
- Close the nonessential phrase "originally implemented by a small group of volunteers" with punctuation that matches the opening comma.
- Still allow the main clause to continue smoothly into "has now expanded ...".
Only a comma after "volunteers" does this correctly. So the correct answer is "volunteers,".