Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and writer whose early work focused on ocean conservation. She published her groundbreaking book...

Sentence Structure

• Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and writer whose early work focused on ocean conservation.
• She published her groundbreaking book Silent Spring in 1962[?] her research on pesticides helped launch the modern environmental movement.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence gives us background:

• Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and writer
  • whose early work focused on ocean conservation.

The second sentence is where we have the blank:

• She published her groundbreaking book Silent Spring in 1962[blank]
• her research on pesticides helped launch the modern environmental movement.

Let's look at the choices - they differ in what comes after 1962: nothing, comma+and, just and, or just comma.

To see what works here, let's read and understand both parts of this sentence!

Reading the part before the blank:

• 'She published her groundbreaking book Silent Spring in 1962'
  • This tells us when Carson published her famous book Silent Spring.
  • Subject: She
  • Action: published her book
  • When: in 1962
  • This is a complete thought - it could stand alone as its own sentence.

Now the part after the blank:

• 'her research on pesticides helped launch the modern environmental movement'
  • This tells us what impact her research had.
  • Subject: her research on pesticides
  • Action: helped launch the modern environmental movement
  • This is also a complete thought - it could stand alone as its own sentence.

What do we notice about the structure here?

• We have two complete thoughts
  • The first tells us about publishing Silent Spring in 1962
  • The second tells us about her research launching the environmental movement
  • These are related ideas that the sentence wants to connect
• When you have two complete thoughts that you want to join into one sentence,
  • you can't just put them next to each other with nothing in between
  • you can't use just a comma (that creates a comma splice)
  • you CAN use a comma followed by a connecting word like 'and'

The correct answer is B: 1962, and

This gives us the proper structure: comma + coordinating conjunction to connect the two complete thoughts.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Connecting Two Complete Thoughts with Comma + Coordinating Conjunction

When you have two complete thoughts (each with its own subject and verb that could stand alone as sentences) and you want to join them into one sentence, you can use a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction. The most common coordinating conjunctions are: and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet.

The pattern:

[Complete thought] , coordinating conjunction [Complete thought]

Examples:

• Two separate sentences:
  • The experiment succeeded. The team celebrated their results.
• Joined with comma + "and":
  • The experiment succeeded, and the team celebrated their results.
• Two separate sentences:
  • The storm approached quickly. We decided to postpone the event.
• Joined with comma + "so":
  • The storm approached quickly, so we decided to postpone the event.

In our question:

• Complete thought 1: She published her groundbreaking book Silent Spring in 1962
• Complete thought 2: her research on pesticides helped launch the modern environmental movement
• Properly connected: ...in 1962, and her research on pesticides...

What to avoid:

• Run-on: Putting two complete thoughts together with no punctuation (Choice A)
• Missing comma: Using a conjunction without the comma before it (Choice C)
• Comma splice: Using only a comma without a conjunction (Choice D)

These are independent clauses (in grammar terms), and they require proper connection to form a grammatically correct sentence.