4. Can you correct the parallelism in this sentence?

Question

The evening church service was over, the family had returned home: and everyone was sitting around in the living room.

A. no change

B. over, the family had returned home,

C. over the family had returned home, 

D. over the family had returned home;

Answer 1

This one is not about parallelism but of punctuation.  Think about how you can determine where a comma should be put.  If a word like "and" can be placed there, the comma probably fits.

 

"The evening church service was over and the family had returned home: and everyone was sitting around in the living room."  

 

Does that seem to work out okay?  If it does, then there should be a comma after the phrase. That means that either option a or b is correct.

 

Now look at what is the purpose of a colon.  It is used to mark a major division in a sentence, to indicate that what follows is an elaboration, summation, implication.  Where are colons normally used?  Lists use them, right? "Bring me the following: bread, milk and eggs."  Does the sentence look like it's listing something out?  If it does, then option A is correct.

 

Finally, think of the use of a semicolon.  That's used to combine two independent clauses together.  It serves the same function as words like and, but, or.  These words normally don't go together one after another and neither does a semicolon to these words.  Is there a word like the ones afore mentioned in the sentence?  If not, then option C could be correct.