With some 16,000 in attendance, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and ______ blank or FESTAC ‘77,

Question

With some 16,000 in attendance, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and blank or FESTAC ‘77, as the event was more commonly known—became the largest pan-African event on record. FESTAC drew people from around the world to Lagos, Nigeria, for a monthlong celebration of Black and African art, scholarship, and activism.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

Accepted Answer

Choice B is the best answer. The text uses a dash to introduce a nonessential element that explains the acronym FESTAC. The dash matches the dash that comes after &ldquo;known,&rdquo; ending the descriptive aside. Choice A is incorrect. A colon can only come after an independent clause, which isn&rsquo;t the case here. Choice C is incorrect. While punctuation is required to set off &ldquo;or FESTAC...known&rdquo; from the rest of the sentence, nonessential elements must be separated from the sentence with matching punctuation. Since a dash appears on the other side of the element, we can&rsquo;t use a comma here. Choice D is incorrect. The descriptive aside &ldquo;or FESTAC...known&rdquo; is a nonessential element that must be separated with punctuation from the rest of the sentence. This choice fails to add the necessary punctuation before the nonessential element.

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