Nine months before Rosa Parks made history by refusing to comply with the segregated seating policy on a Montgomery, Alabama,...

Sentence Structure

• Nine months before Rosa Parks made history
  • by refusing to comply with the segregated seating policy
    • on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus,
• a fifteen-year-old Montgomery girl
  • named Claudette Colvin
• was arrested
  • for the same offense [?]

• according to some historians,
• Colvin's arrest
  • led
    • to Parks's action
    • and eventually to the desegregation of Montgomery's bus system.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

The passage opens with:

• 'Nine months before Rosa Parks made history by refusing to comply with the segregated seating policy on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus'
  • This sets up the timeline - we're talking about something that happened nine months BEFORE Rosa Parks's famous act
  • It reminds us what Rosa Parks did - she refused to follow the segregated seating rules on a bus

Then we learn:

• 'a fifteen-year-old Montgomery girl named Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same offense'
  • So before Rosa Parks, there was this teenage girl who did the same thing
  • She was arrested for it

This is a complete thought - it tells us Colvin was arrested for the same offense. The sentence has:

• Subject: 'a fifteen-year-old Montgomery girl named Claudette Colvin'
• Verb: 'was arrested'

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

• A gives us: period + capital 'According'
• B gives us: comma + lowercase 'according'
• C gives us: no punctuation + lowercase 'according'
• D gives us: 'and' + lowercase 'according'

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

The text continues:

• 'according to some historians, Colvin's arrest led to Parks's action and eventually to the desegregation of Montgomery's bus system.'

What does this tell us?

• It's giving us historical perspective - according to some historians
• It's saying that Colvin's arrest actually LED TO Parks's action
• And ultimately led to desegregation of the bus system

Let me check if this is also a complete sentence:

• Subject: 'Colvin's arrest'
• Verb: 'led'
• Complete thought: Yes - it tells us her arrest led to something

What do we notice about the structure here?

We have TWO COMPLETE SENTENCES:

• First sentence: 'Nine months before Rosa Parks made history... Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same offense.'
  • This is a complete thought that could stand on its own
• Second sentence: 'According to some historians, Colvin's arrest led to Parks's action and eventually to the desegregation of Montgomery's bus system.'
  • This is also a complete thought that could stand on its own

When you have two complete sentences - each with its own subject and verb, each expressing a complete thought - you need to separate them properly. You cannot:

• Just use a comma (that's called a comma splice)
• Use no punctuation (that's a run-on sentence)
• Use 'and according' (that's not grammatically correct)

So we need: A PERIOD after 'offense' to end the first sentence, and a CAPITAL LETTER 'A' to start the new sentence.

The correct answer is A.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Separating Complete Sentences (Independent Clauses)

When you have two complete sentences - each with its own subject and verb, and each expressing a complete thought that could stand alone - you must separate them properly. These are called independent clauses in grammar terms.

Here are the correct ways to handle two independent clauses:

Option 1: Make them two separate sentences

• First sentence: Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same offense.
• Second sentence: According to some historians, Colvin's arrest led to Parks's action.
• How to do it: Period after the first sentence + capital letter to start the second

Option 2: Use a semicolon

• Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same offense; according to some historians, her arrest led to Parks's action.
• When to use it: When the two sentences are closely related

Option 3: Use a comma + coordinating conjunction

• Claudette Colvin was arrested, and according to some historians, her arrest led to change.
• The coordinating conjunctions: FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)

What you CANNOT do:

• Use just a comma (comma splice): "...arrested for the same offense, according to historians..."
• Use no punctuation (run-on): "...arrested for the same offense according to historians..."

In this question: Since the second sentence begins with "According to some historians" (providing attribution and context), it works best as a new sentence with a period and capital letter.