A punctuation question with a list and a descriptive ending tests where commas belong. Read the words after the blank and cross out the ending to check whether the main sentence is still complete without those words. Extra information takes commas at both ends, unless it ends at the sentence’s final period. Then count the items joined by and: two items take no comma between them, while longer lists use commas.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at what the words after the blank add. Can you cross them out and still have a full sentence once the donated items are named?
- Hint 2
Check the two comma positions separately. How many items does and join, and where does that group end?
Step-by-step
Test the ending and the list
Step 1Cross out the ending
Read the ending, many of which arrive without dates or captions. Does it finish the reason the archive is difficult to catalog, or add a fact about the donated items? Cross out those words and read the sentence with the donated items in the blank. The sentence still explains why cataloging is difficult: there are so many donated items. That means the ending adds extra information, so we need to find where that information starts and ends.
- Step 2
Find where the ending stops
Where does the added information end? It runs from many of which to the sentence’s final period, so that period marks its end. Extra information at the end takes one comma at its start, rather than a pair within the sentence. We need that comma after the whole group of donated items, where the text moves from naming them to telling us what many are missing.
- Step 3
Check the joined items
The blank finishes the sheer number of donated with photographs and letters. What does and join here? These are two nouns, not two complete sentences, so there’s no comma between these two nouns. The version photographs and letters, leaves the items together and places the comma before the ending about missing dates or captions. Choice C.