ShmoopTube

00:03

Here's an unshmoopy question you'll find on the exam...

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Fix this sentence; which of the below answers completes it properly?

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Keith and Jane went for a bike ride Jane fell.

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And here are the potential answers:

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So... what is this question asking?

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How's our colon?

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Uh... this kind.

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If we read this sentence aloud, it just sounds... off.

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Keith and Jane went for a bike ride Jane fell.

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Yeah. Woooaaaaah there. Switch to decaf please.

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So clearly something is missing -- we need some punctuation.

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And if we glance at our answers, we can just cross off D here as a no go.

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A looks at first like it might work... but it uses a colon instead of a semi-colon. A

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semi-colon can be used when both halves of a sentence could stand alone, but that's

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not the function of a colon. So buh-bye, A.

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C is incorrect because the "but" doesn't make sense here.

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The bike riding and Jane's fall are two separate events -- the fall does not negate

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the fact that the two were riding their bikes.

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So we're dealing with two separate events... which needs an "and." They rode their

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bikes... AND Jane fell. Not but.

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The only one left is B and it's the right one -- commas separate independent clauses.

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So yeah, comma, B is the answer.

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