Which sentence is punctuated correctly?
The eager energetic students are ready for gym to begin.
The red-faced exhausted students are glad that gym is over.
Before gym class, the students seem happy, excited, and ready to play. After gym class the students appear tired, worn-out, and, thirsty.
After gym class the students appear tired, worn-out, and, thirsty.
The sentence "After gym class the students appear tired, worn-out, and, thirsty." is punctuated correctly.
The sentence "After gym class the students appear tired, worn-out, and, thirsty." is punctuated correctly.
The correct sentence with proper punctuation is:
"After gym class, the students appear tired, worn-out, and thirsty."
To identify the correct sentence, we need to analyze the punctuation rules for each option and see which one adheres to those rules:
Option 1: "The eager, energetic students are ready for gym to begin."
- In this option, the comma is missing after "eager." According to the comma rules, a comma should be used to separate two or more adjectives that modify the same noun, so it should be "The eager, energetic students."
Option 2: "The red-faced, exhausted students are glad that gym is over."
- In this option, the comma is correctly used between "red-faced" and "exhausted" to separate the two adjectives modifying "students."
Option 3: "Before gym class, the students seem happy, excited, and ready to play. After gym class, the students appear tired, worn-out, and thirsty."
- In this option, the commas are correctly used after "Before gym class" and "After gym class" to set off the introductory phrases. The commas are also properly used to separate the adjectives "happy," "excited," and "ready" as well as "tired," "worn-out," and "thirsty" as they modify the students.
Option 4: "After gym class the students appear tired, worn-out, and, thirsty."
- In this option, a comma is incorrectly placed after "and." According to the comma rules, a comma should not be used before the coordinating conjunction "and" when it is preceding the last item in a series. Therefore, the correct punctuation should be "After gym class, the students appear tired, worn-out, and thirsty."
Based on the analysis above, option 3 is the correctly punctuated sentence.