Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta's celebrated literary oeuvre includes The Joys of Motherhood, a novel about the changing roles of women...

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

• Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta's celebrated literary oeuvre
  • includes The Joys of Motherhood,
    • a novel about the changing roles of women in 1950s Lagos (?) A Kind of Marriage (?),
    • a television play about the private struggles of a newlywed couple in Nigeria;
    • and Head Above Water,
      • her autobiography.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts by telling us about a Nigerian author:

• 'Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta's celebrated literary oeuvre includes...'
  • Her "oeuvre" means her body of work - all the things she's written
  • The sentence is going to list some of these works

First work:

• 'The Joys of Motherhood, a novel about the changing roles of women in 1950s Lagos'
  • Title: The Joys of Motherhood
  • Description: a novel about women in 1950s Lagos

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

• Choice A: Lagos, A Kind of Marriage,
• Choice B: Lagos; A Kind of Marriage,
• Choice C: Lagos, A Kind of Marriage:
• Choice D: Lagos; A Kind of Marriage

We're deciding:

• What punctuation goes after "Lagos"? (comma or semicolon)
• What punctuation goes after "A Kind of Marriage"? (comma or nothing)

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

The sentence continues:

• 'a television play about the private struggles of a newlywed couple in Nigeria'
  • This describes "A Kind of Marriage" - it's a television play
• 'and Head Above Water, her autobiography'
  • Third work: Head Above Water
  • Description: her autobiography

Now let's understand the complete structure:

The sentence is giving us a list of three works by Buchi Emecheta:

1. The Joys of Motherhood, a novel...
2. A Kind of Marriage, a television play...
3. and Head Above Water, her autobiography

Each work is followed by a comma and then a description.

What do we notice about the structure here?

• We have three major items in a list
• Each item has two parts: title, description
  • The comma separates the title from its description
• Look at how the sentence separates the second item from the third:
  • After "...couple in Nigeria" there's a SEMICOLON before "and Head Above Water"
• This tells us the major list items are being separated by semicolons, not commas

Why semicolons instead of regular commas?

• Because each list item already contains its own internal comma (the comma between title and description)
• When list items have commas inside them, we use semicolons to separate the major items
  • This prevents confusion about which commas are "inside" an item and which are separating different items

So the pattern should be:

• Item 1, description; Item 2, description; and Item 3, description

Therefore, we need:

• After "Lagos" (end of first item): SEMICOLON
• After "A Kind of Marriage" (title of second item): COMMA (to separate it from its description)

The correct answer is Choice B: Lagos; A Kind of Marriage,

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Semicolons in Complex Lists (When List Items Contain Commas)

When you're creating a list and each item in the list already contains commas, you use semicolons to separate the major items. This prevents confusion about which commas are "internal punctuation" within an item and which commas are separating different items.

Simple list pattern (no internal commas):

• We visited Boston, Chicago, and Seattle.

Complex list pattern (items contain internal commas):

• We visited Boston, a historic city; Chicago, known for deep-dish pizza; and Seattle, home of coffee culture.
• Each city name is followed by a comma and a description
• The major items (Boston + description, Chicago + description, Seattle + description) are separated by semicolons

How this applies to our question:

The sentence lists three of Emecheta's works, and each work has a description:

• The Joys of Motherhood, a novel about women in 1950s Lagos;
• A Kind of Marriage, a television play about a couple in Nigeria;
• and Head Above Water, her autobiography

Each work title needs a comma before its description, and each complete item (title + description) needs a semicolon before the next item.