A punctuation question tests how a description at the end joins a sentence. Read around the blank and check which words can stand alone as a sentence. If a noun is followed by that, ask whether the noun has its own verb. Cross out the possible extra information to see whether the main sentence still works. Descriptions needed for the meaning take no punctuation; a comma can attach extra ones, and a period or semicolon needs complete sentences on both sides.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the words before the blank. Find what the bookstores are doing, and ask whether those words already make a complete sentence.
- Hint 2
After the blank, check which word the verb belongs to. Does surprised go with trend, or with that?
- Hint 3
Try removing the phrase that begins with trend. Ask whether it completes the sentence or adds a description.
Step-by-step
Test the ending and attach it
Step 1Find the complete thought
The bookstores are experiencing a resurgence, so they have a main verb, the verb that says what they're doing. What does with sales increasing by nearly 8 percent add? It explains how much sales have risen, so the words before the blank already form a complete sentence. Now let's check whether the ending can stand as another sentence.
- Step 2
Test the ending on its own
Could trend that surprised many industry analysts stand alone? The ending names a trend, and the words beginning with that describe it. Surprised belongs to that, so trend still has no main verb outside that description. Without that, surprised could be the trend's main verb, but here it stays inside the description. So the ending is a fragment, a group of words that can't stand alone.
- Step 3
Find what the ending adds
What does this fragment add? It calls sales increasing by nearly 8 percent a trend, giving the rise in sales another name. Cross out the ending, and the statement about bookstores still works. So the fragment is extra information at the sentence's end, not words needed to complete the sentence.
- Step 4
Attach the extra description
At the end of a sentence, one comma can attach an extra description without making it a separate sentence. Put that comma after last year, where the sales detail ends. last year, a places it before trend that surprised many industry analysts, so the phrase stays attached to the complete thought. Choice A.