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Problem 1 - Entrance Test

The following sentence contains a punctuation error. Identify the error and choose the option that corrects it: 'Despite the overwhelming evidence; the defendant maintained his innocence throughout the trial.'

A. Change the semicolon to a comma.B. Change the semicolon to a colon.C. Change the semicolon to a period and start a new sentence.D. The sentence is correctly punctuated.

Correct: C

The semicolon in the original sentence incorrectly joins two independent clauses that are not closely related. A semicolon is best used to connect closely related independent clauses or items in a list when those items themselves contain commas. In this case, a period would be more appropriate to separate the thoughts effectively. Thus the semicolon should be replaced with a period.