During the early sixteenth century, the Renaissance artist Michelangelo spent four years painting the Sistine Chapel _____ forever changed how...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• During the early sixteenth century,
  • the Renaissance artist Michelangelo
    • spent four years
      • painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling [?]
        • forever changed how religious narratives
          • were depicted in European art.

• Where [?] = comma / comma and / and comma / and

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

During the early sixteenth century,
the Renaissance artist Michelangelo
spent four years
painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling...

So we're learning about what Michelangelo did:

• He spent four years painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• A: just a comma
• B: comma and "and"
• C: "and" and a comma
• D: just "and"

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues: "forever changed how religious narratives were depicted in European art."

Now let's understand what this complete sentence is telling us:

• Michelangelo did something that took four years:
  • painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling

• And by doing this, he accomplished something major:
  • forever changed how religious narratives were depicted in European art

So the complete meaning is:

• Michelangelo performed TWO significant actions:
  1. Spent four years painting the ceiling
  2. Forever changed how religious art depicted narratives

What do we notice about the structure here?

• We have one subject: Michelangelo

• We have two verb phrases (two actions by that same subject):
  • "spent four years painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling"
  • "forever changed how religious narratives were depicted"

• When you have one subject doing two things, you're creating what's called a compound predicate
  • You connect the two actions with "and"
  • You DON'T use a comma before the "and" (unless the verb phrases are really long and complex)

This is a straightforward case - the two actions flow naturally together.

So we need: and (without any commas)

The correct answer is Choice D: ceiling and

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Connecting Actions by the Same Subject (Compound Predicates)

When a single subject performs two or more actions, you connect the verb phrases with a coordinating conjunction like "and" - typically WITHOUT a comma (this structure is called a compound predicate in grammar terms):

Pattern:

• Subject + Verb Phrase 1 + and + Verb Phrase 2

Example 1:

• Sarah studied chemistry for three hours and aced her exam.
• Subject: Sarah
• Action 1: studied chemistry for three hours
• Action 2: aced her exam
• Connected with "and" (no comma)

Example 2:

• The technology revolutionized communication and transformed how people connect globally.
• Subject: The technology
• Action 1: revolutionized communication
• Action 2: transformed how people connect globally
• Connected with "and" (no comma)

In this question:

• Michelangelo spent four years painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling and forever changed how religious narratives were depicted in European art.
• Subject: Michelangelo
• Action 1: spent four years painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling
• Action 2: forever changed how religious narratives were depicted
• Connected with "and" (no comma)

Note: You WOULD use a comma before "and" if you were joining two complete independent clauses (where each clause has its own subject stated). But when the subject is shared and not repeated, skip the comma.