In 1959, marine biologist Dr. Albert Jones founded the Underwater Adventure Seekers, a scuba diving ______ that is the oldest...

Sentence Structure

• In 1959,
  • marine biologist Dr. Albert Jones founded the Underwater Adventure Seekers,
    • a scuba diving club(?)
      • that is the oldest club for Black divers in the United States
      • and
      • that has helped thousands of diving enthusiasts become certified in the field.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

In 1959, marine biologist Dr. Albert Jones founded the Underwater Adventure Seekers

• This tells us when and how this organization was created
• Dr. Jones was the founder

Then we get a description:

• 'a scuba diving club'
  • This tells us what the Underwater Adventure Seekers is - it's a club for scuba diving

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• A gives us no punctuation after "club"
• B gives us a comma
• C gives us a dash
• D gives us a comma and the word "and"

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

The sentence continues with two parts connected by "and":

• 'that is the oldest club for Black divers in the United States'
  • This tells us something important about the club - it's the oldest of its kind
• 'and that has helped thousands of diving enthusiasts become certified in the field'
  • This tells us another important thing about the club - what it has accomplished

Now, what do we notice about the structure here?

• We have the word "club"
• followed immediately by two descriptive clauses that both start with "that"
• These clauses are telling us essential information about which club we're talking about:
  • It's the oldest club for Black divers
  • It has helped thousands get certified
• These "that" clauses need to flow directly from the word "club" because they're giving us the defining characteristics of this specific club
• The two "that" clauses are already connected to each other with "and"

So we need no punctuation between "club" and "that."

The correct answer is Choice A.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Connecting Essential Descriptive Clauses to Nouns

When you have a clause beginning with "that" which provides essential, defining information about a noun, it connects directly to that noun without any punctuation. These are called restrictive relative clauses in grammar terms - the information restricts or narrows down which specific thing you're talking about.

Pattern:

• Noun + that + essential information = NO punctuation
• Example: "The book that changed my life is out of print"
• "that changed my life" tells us which specific book - it's essential information
• No comma between "book" and "that"

• Even with multiple "that" clauses connected by "and":
• Example: "She visited the museum that houses ancient artifacts and that offers free tours"
• Both clauses define which museum
• No punctuation after "museum"

In our question:

• "a scuba diving club that is the oldest club for Black divers and that has helped thousands"
• Both "that" clauses give us essential information about this specific club
• They connect directly to "club" with no punctuation

Contrast with non-essential information:

• If the information is extra/optional (not essential for identifying which one), you DO use commas
• These clauses begin with "which" and are called non-restrictive
• Example: "The club, which was founded in 1959, still operates today"