Psychologists have long debated whether personality traits remain stable throughout adulthood. Modern longitudinal studies suggest that core character...

Sentence Structure

• Psychologists have long debated
  • whether personality traits remain stable throughout adulthood.

• Modern longitudinal studies suggest
  • that core characteristics persist relatively unchanged (?) individuals
    • may experience significant shifts
      • in specific behavioral patterns
        • during major life transitions.

Where (?) represents what varies:

• A. unchanged, though;
• B. unchanged though,
• C. unchanged; though,
• D. unchanged, though

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start from the beginning:

The first sentence gives us context:

• Psychologists have been debating whether personality traits stay stable throughout adulthood.

Now the second sentence tells us what modern research shows:

• "Modern longitudinal studies suggest that core characteristics persist relatively unchanged..."

So research is showing that core characteristics stay relatively unchanged.

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

• They all include the word "though"
• What varies is the punctuation before and after it - commas, semicolons, or no punctuation in different combinations

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

The sentence continues:

• "individuals may experience significant shifts in specific behavioral patterns during major life transitions."

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

• First part:
  • "core characteristics persist relatively unchanged"
  • This means the fundamental parts of personality stay the same

• The word "though"
  • signals a contrast - "but" or "however"

• Second part:
  • "individuals may experience significant shifts in specific behavioral patterns during major life transitions"
  • So even though core traits stay the same, people's actual behaviors can change significantly during big life events

So the complete picture is:

• The sentence is presenting two contrasting ideas:
  • Core traits stay unchanged (BUT)
  • Specific behaviors can shift significantly

What do we notice about the structure here?

• Both parts are complete thoughts:
  • "core characteristics persist relatively unchanged" - complete clause
  • "individuals may experience significant shifts..." - has subject (individuals) and verb (may experience)

• "Though" is connecting these two complete thoughts to show the contrast between them

• When "though" connects two clauses like this in the middle of a sentence,
  • we need a comma before "though" (to mark where the first thought ends)
  • but no punctuation after "though" (it directly introduces the contrasting clause)

So we need: unchanged, though

The correct answer is D.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas with Contrasting Conjunctions

When you connect two related clauses where the second one contrasts with the first using words like "though," "although," or "while," follow this pattern:

Pattern: First clause, though second clause.

• Place a comma before the contrasting word
• No punctuation after the contrasting word

Example 1:

• "The experiment succeeded, though the results were unexpected."
  • First clause: "The experiment succeeded"
  • Contrasting word: "though"
  • Second clause: "the results were unexpected"

Example 2:

• "The team finished last, although they had been favored to win."
  • Comma before "although"
  • No punctuation after "although"

In our question:

• First clause: "core characteristics persist relatively unchanged"
• Contrasting word: "though"
• Second clause: "individuals may experience significant shifts in specific behavioral patterns during major life transitions"
• Correct punctuation: unchanged, though (comma before, nothing after)

This pattern (called a subordinating conjunction in grammar terms) makes the second clause dependent on the first while showing the contrast between the two ideas.