A punctuation question with one piece of extra information inside another tests how you mark off both. Follow each insert, a piece of extra information, back to its opening mark. Then cross out the extra information to check that what's left is a complete sentence. In the middle of a sentence, inserts need matching commas, matching dashes, or paired parentheses, and the inner insert closes first. Don't let marks within an insert distract you from the sentence around it.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look back through the list of Bronze Age centers and find where extra information starts.
- Hint 2
Look within that list for a second insert about Enkomi. What mark opens this smaller piece of extra information?
- Hint 3
Cross out the list and the port description together. Where does the main sentence pick up, and which insert needs to close first?
Step-by-step
Track both inserts
Step 1Find the outer insert
The dash in “centers—one at Hattusa, another at Ugarit, and a third at Enkomi” opens a list naming the three centers. What do we need to find at the blank? We're looking for where this extra information, or insert, ends. The commas separate items within the list, so they don't close the dash insert.
- Step 2
Find the insert inside the list
Inside that list, “(a port on present-day” starts a smaller insert about Enkomi. What does this smaller piece add? It tells us where Enkomi is rather than naming another center. The parenthesis opened inside the dash insert, so closing it will finish only the port description, not the whole list.
- Step 3
Find where the sentence continues
Where does the main sentence pick up? Cross out the list and the port description together, and the text says the archaeologists have linked tin from three centers to Central Asian ore deposits. The phrase “to ore deposits in Central Asia” tells us what the tin was linked to, so it belongs to the main sentence. Both inserts must end at the blank, before the text returns to the archaeologists' finding.
- Step 4
Close the inner insert, then the outer
Now close the inserts from the inside out. The port description closes before the list, so its closing parenthesis has to come first. The dash in “centers—one at Hattusa” then needs a matching dash to close the list. The version Cyprus)— gives us both closing marks in that order. Choice B.