A punctuation question about names tests whether the names are essential or extra. Read the words around the blank, then ask whether the title tells you who the people are without their names. Essential names say which people are meant, so they take no commas; extra names take a pair within a sentence. With names joined by and, treat them as one group. Check each comma’s job, because a comma already in the passage may belong to a different part.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read from as through emphasize, including the comma after the verb. Check what that comma closes off.
- Hint 2
Cross out the names and check the meaning. Does the title still tell you which people emphasize the point about funding?
Step-by-step
Decide whether the names are essential
Step 1Find what the commas would set off
Read from Moreover, as through emphasize: the blank names the people speaking about funding. What part would the changing commas set off? The choices repeat the title economists and two names, so we need to decide whether the names say which economists or add extra information about a group we already know.
- Step 2
Test whether the title tells us who the people are
Does economists alone tell us who the people are who emphasize the point? The sentence doesn’t say which two people that title refers to, so Priya Desai and Marco Alvarez tell us which economists are speaking. Let’s cross the names out: as economists emphasize still fits the sentence grammatically, but it now speaks of economists in general instead of these two people. That shift in meaning shows that the names are essential, even though removing them doesn’t break the grammar.
- Step 3
Give each comma a job
Since essential names take no commas, the title stays attached to the names, and two names joined by and need no comma between them. Together, the title and names are the subject, the people who emphasize the point, so a lone comma can’t split them from their verb, emphasize. The comma in emphasize, securing consistent funding closes the whole as part, so it can’t close a pair around the names. Use the version with no added commas. Choice B.