Which sentence is written correctly? “The game was canceled because of the storm, so we stayed home and studied”

Use Standard Grammar, Usage, and Spelling to Edit · TELPAS Grades 10–12 writing. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.

Reporting category 2: find and fix an error in a short text. On the real test some of these are typed answers or sentence rewrites. Here they are multiple choice so they can be checked.

The question

Read the sentences. Choose the best answer.

Which sentence is written correctly?

• AThe game was canceled because of the storm we stayed home and studied.
• BThe game was canceled because of the storm, so we stayed home and studied.Correct answer
• CThe game was canceled because of the storm, we stayed home and studied.
• DBecause the game was canceled because of the storm. We stayed home and studied.

Why “The game was canceled because of the storm, so we stayed home and studied.” is correct

This tests sentence boundaries. Two complete sentences can be joined with a comma and a joining word such as "so," or kept as two sentences. Running them together, joining them with only a comma, or cutting off a "because" clause as its own sentence are all errors.

Why the other answers are wrong

• The game was canceled because of the storm we stayed home and studied. — This is a run-on sentence: two complete sentences are joined with no punctuation or joining word.
• The game was canceled because of the storm, we stayed home and studied. — A comma alone cannot join two complete sentences; this is a comma splice.
• Because the game was canceled because of the storm. We stayed home and studied. — The first part begins with "Because" and has no main clause, so it is a fragment.

Practice more of this

More writing practice for Grades 10–12, or see the TELPAS practice test for 10th–12th grade.