Located in the northern United States, the Great Lakes Basin contains roughly 35,000 islands. Lake Superior has Grand Island, for...

Sentence Structure

Sentence 1:

• Located in the northern United States,
• the Great Lakes Basin contains roughly 35,000 islands.

Sentence 2:

• Lake Superior has Grand Island, for example.

Sentence 3:

• Lake Michigan has Belle Isle.

Sentence 4:

• Lake Huron, though, is home to (?) the largest island of them all: Manitoulin Island.

Understanding the Meaning

The passage is introducing us to the Great Lakes Basin and its many islands:

• First sentence tells us the basin contains roughly 35,000 islands.

Then we get specific examples from different lakes:

• Lake Superior has Grand Island
• Lake Michigan has Belle Isle

Now we get to Lake Huron:

• "Lake Huron, though, is home to (?) the largest island of them all: Manitoulin Island."

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

• They all have "to" but vary in what comes after:
  • to; (semicolon)
  • to— (dash)
  • to (nothing)
  • to, (comma)

To see what works here, let's understand what this complete sentence is saying!

• "Lake Huron is home to the largest island of them all"
  • "is home to" is a phrase meaning "contains" or "houses"
  • "the largest island of them all" is what Lake Huron contains
• Then after "them all" we get a colon: "Manitoulin Island"
  • This specifies which island we're talking about

What do we notice about the structure here?

• "Is home to" works as a complete verb phrase
  • It needs to connect directly to what comes after it
  • "The largest island" is what Lake Huron is home to - it's the object receiving the action
• These core sentence parts need to flow together:
  • Subject: Lake Huron
  • Verb phrase: is home to
  • Object: the largest island of them all
• We don't put punctuation between a verb and its object - they need to connect directly to make sense.

So we need Choice C - no punctuation after "to" because "the largest island of them all" is the direct object that completes the verb phrase "is home to."

Grammar Concept Applied

Keeping Core Sentence Elements Together

A fundamental principle of English sentence structure is that core elements - the subject, verb, and object - should flow together without punctuation interrupting them.

The pattern:

• Subject + Verb + Object = no punctuation between these elements
• Example: The team won the championship.
• NOT: The team won, the championship.
• NOT: The team won; the championship.

With verb phrases:

• When the verb includes multiple words (called a verb phrase), the object still follows directly
• Example: The company is looking for new employees.
• "is looking for" = complete verb phrase
• "new employees" = object
• These connect directly without punctuation

In our sentence:

• Subject: Lake Huron
• Verb phrase: is home to
• Object: the largest island of them all
• These must flow together: "Lake Huron is home to the largest island of them all"

Why this matters:

Interrupting the connection between a verb and its object disrupts the basic logic of the sentence. The verb expresses an action or state, and the object tells us what receives that action or completes that state - they're a grammatical unit that works together.