The Mission 66 initiative, which was approved by Congress in 1956, represented a major investment in the infrastructure of overburdened national _____it prioritized physical improvements to the parks’ roads, utilities, employee housing, and visitor facilities while also establishing educational programming for the public.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Explanation
Context: The sentence has two independent clauses: "The Mission 66 initiative...represented a major investment in the infrastructure of overburdened national parks" and "it prioritized physical improvements to the parks' roads...while also establishing educational programming." No conjunction connects them.
Answer: C) parks;
Why? Two closely related independent clauses without a conjunction are joined by a semicolon. The semicolon correctly links the general statement (major investment) with the specific details of what was prioritized.
Traps:
- A) parks and → "and" is a coordinating conjunction but requires a comma before it ("parks, and it prioritized"); without the comma, it's a run-on
- B) parks → run-on; no punctuation or conjunction between the two independent clauses
- D) parks, → comma splice; a comma alone cannot join two independent clauses