A punctuation question with a name and a description tests where extra information begins and ends. Read around the blank to find the person and their main verb, then ask which words interrupt that link. Follow the whole description, since verbs inside it may belong to a different subject. Cross out the description to check that the sentence still works without it. A name that tells you who is meant stays attached to the title, while extra information in the middle takes a matching pair of marks.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read from evidence that through the quotation. Find who is doing the calling and which verb goes with that person.
- Hint 2
Try the cross-out test on the description about comparing the tablets. Which words can you remove while leaving a complete sentence?
- Hint 3
After you find the extra information, check how each comma works. Does each comma separate extra information or split words that need to stay together?
Step-by-step
Find the insert and match the commas
Step 1Find the historian’s verb
Read evidence that with the quotation beginning a record of frontier life. The quotation tells us what the evidence is called, while the blank tells us who calls it that. Who does the calling? Elena Varga does, so her name must connect to the verb calls after any extra information is removed.
- Step 2
Find the whole insert
What interrupts Varga and calls? Comparing the tablets with official reports that emphasize commands and supplies describes what she’s doing as she makes her point. It’s an insert, extra information the sentence can do without. Emphasize belongs to reports, not to Varga, so we keep those words inside the insert through supplies. Cross out that whole description, and Varga still calls the evidence a record of frontier life.
- Step 3
Check which words must stay attached
Which words identify the person or thing we mean? Elena Varga says which Roman historian, so the version with Roman historian, wrongly splits her title from her name. A comma in official reports, that also breaks a link because that emphasize commands and supplies tells which reports she compares. Varga’s name and the words starting with that aren’t extra information.
- Step 4
Complete the comma pair
Varga’s description needs a comma at each end. The version with Varga comparing has only the closing comma after supplies, so it has no opening comma. The version with Varga, comparing and supplies, calls forms the matching pair around the full description. Choice A.