The Limón technique, developed by Mexican-born dancer and choreographer Jose Limón, is known for its emphasis on breath control and...

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

• The Limón technique,
• developed by Mexican-born dancer and choreographer Jose Limón,
• is known for its emphasis on breath control
• and its interplay of weight and weightlessness[?]
• dancers may explore,
• for example,
• the moment of mid-air suspension at the top of a jump.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start from the beginning and understand what this sentence is telling us:

The passage is about the Limón technique –

• a dance technique that was developed by Jose Limón
• and it's known for two things:
  • its emphasis on breath control
  • and its interplay of weight and weightlessness

Now I've reached the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• They're asking me to decide what punctuation (if any) should come after "weightlessness"

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

The sentence continues:

• "dancers may explore, for example, the moment of mid-air suspension at the top of a jump."

This is giving us a specific example:

• Dancers can explore this idea of weight and weightlessness
• The example given is that moment when you're at the top of a jump –
  • suspended in mid-air
  • experiencing that feeling of weightlessness

Now, what do we notice about the structure here?

Let's look at both parts:

• First part: "The Limón technique...is known for its emphasis on breath control and its interplay of weight and weightlessness"
  • This has a subject: "The Limón technique"
  • This has a verb: "is known"
  • This is a complete thought that could stand alone as its own sentence

• Second part: "dancers may explore, for example, the moment of mid-air suspension at the top of a jump"
  • This has a subject: "dancers"
  • This has a verb: "may explore"
  • This is also a complete thought that could stand alone

So we have two complete sentences that are closely related – the second one gives an example that illustrates what the first one is talking about.

When we have two complete sentences that are closely related like this, we need a semicolon to connect them properly.

The correct answer is D: weightlessness;

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Connecting Two Complete Sentences with a Semicolon

When you have two complete sentences (each with its own subject and verb) that are closely related in meaning, you can use a semicolon to join them together (this is called joining two independent clauses in grammar terms):

Pattern:

• Complete sentence #1 ; complete sentence #2

Example 1:

• "The technique emphasizes breath control; dancers learn to coordinate movement with breathing."
• First part: complete sentence (The technique emphasizes...)
• Second part: complete sentence (dancers learn...)
• Semicolon joins them because they're closely related

Example 2:

• "The choreography was innovative; it challenged traditional ballet conventions."
• First part: complete sentence (The choreography was innovative)
• Second part: complete sentence (it challenged...)
• Semicolon shows these ideas are connected

In this question:

• First complete sentence: "The Limón technique...is known for its emphasis on breath control and its interplay of weight and weightlessness"
• Second complete sentence: "dancers may explore, for example, the moment of mid-air suspension at the top of a jump"
• These are closely related (the second gives an example of the first)
• Therefore, we need a semicolon to join them properly

What doesn't work:

• No punctuation = run-on sentence
• Just a comma = comma splice (a comma alone can't join two complete sentences)
• Period would work grammatically, but it's not one of the choices