Key for Punctuation Practice Test
1. E - The commas surrounding "in addition to his fellow
bureaucrats" offset a non-restrictive phrase or superfluous
information. President will only be capitalized if it's the first word
in a sentence or if it's referring to the President of the United States.
The 's is tagged on to Denton to indicate its possession of the North
Texas locality. By default, the answer is E.
2. A - As is, the semicolon separates two independent clauses or
complete sentences. Either can stand alone as a complete
sentence. The latter, though, further modifies the last word,
"statement," before the colon. The group of words to the left of a
colon must be a complete sentence, whereas the group of words to
the right can be a list, statement, directions, or a wide array of
things. The key is to make sure that the group of words to the right
of the colon modify or further explain the sentence to the left of the
colon.
3. E - "Like" will remain as so. This is an example of the different
meanings of prepositions. Although the difference is very slight in
the cases of "like" and "as," it is still significant and something to be
mindful of when taking the GSP. There is no need for the comma
before "or" because the group of words that follow it is not a
complete sentence. "pulp fiction," if you remember the movie, is
not hyphenated. "Crazed out" is not hyphenated either.
4. D - The semicolons in this sentence are used to divide the items
in the list that contain commas. The semicolon after "Midwest"
does not act as a divider between the items that contain commas.
One should replace the semicolon with a colon because the colon
acts as a formal introducer to call attention to what follows, in this
case the names of the members.
5. C - Commas and periods always go to the left of the quotations,
regardless of whether there are two, three, or twenty quotation
marks.
6. E - There is no abrupt change in tone in the phrase "by their
children" worthy enough to merit the use of a dash. The commas
surrounding "who hear... excuse" do not surround a non-restrictive
phrase. Which mothers? The mothers who hear such a contrived
excuse. Since that phrase is necessary to the clarification of which