A punctuation question tests how groups of words join to form a sentence. When the blank follows opening words, find the sentence's subject and main verb. Then test each group of words and check whether it can stand alone. A period or semicolon separates complete sentences; a comma can separate an opening description from the main sentence. No punctuation is needed when the words belong together without a break. A group's length alone doesn't tell you whether it's complete.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the opening group of words. What do those words tell us about the painters?
- Hint 2
Read from “many early nineteenth-century painters” to the end. Then test whether the words before the blank can stand alone.
Step-by-step
Cross out the opening description
Step 1Find the main sentence
The opening words Charmed by the promise of untouched describe the painters before we hear what they did. Who is the sentence about, and what did they do? In many early nineteenth-century painters traveled, the painters are the subject, and traveled is the main verb. We're deciding how that opening description joins the main sentence.
- Step 2
Test the opening words
Cross out the opening description and read what's left: many early nineteenth-century painters traveled to the Hudson River Valley, followed by why they went. Those words form a complete sentence. Can the crossed-out words stand alone? They can't, because Charmed describes the painters without giving the opening words their own subject and main verb. So the description is extra information attached to the main sentence.
- Step 3
Attach the description
At the start of a sentence, a comma separates an opening description from the main sentence. Place that comma before many early nineteenth-century painters, where the main sentence picks up. The version with wilderness, does that. Choice C.