Punctuation and cohesion: the run-on excursion sentence
An Extremadura PAU candidate submits this sentence in the writing task: 'In spite of the rain was heavy, the excursion went ahead, however most students forgot their boots, they had to borrow some from the sports hall.' The teacher also finds two more problems in the same paragraph: 'the 1990's' written with an apostrophe and 'well-known' written without a hyphen when it precedes a noun ('a well known author'). The candidate says the sentence 'sounds fine' because each idea is clear. The class is revising punctuation and cohesion before the exam. The teacher wants the candidate to see that the errors are structural, not cosmetic: one is a clause-boundary problem, one is a connector problem, one is a pronoun-reference problem, and the others are conventions. The candidate has 140 minutes for the whole exam and tends to rush the writing section.
1. Correct the sentence and label each change as a clause-boundary, connector or pronoun-reference fix.
Read the worked answer
A correct version is: 'Although the rain was heavy, the excursion went ahead; however, most students had forgotten their boots and had to borrow some from the sports hall.' Changes: (1) 'In spite of the rain was heavy' is ungrammatical because 'in spite of' is a preposition and needs a noun phrase ('in spite of the heavy rain') or a gerund; to keep a finite clause, use 'Although' or 'Even though'. (2) The comma before 'however' creates a comma splice; 'however' is a conjunctive adverb, so it needs a semicolon or full stop before it and a comma after it. (3) 'they had to borrow some' has an unclear pronoun; recast with 'and' so the students are the clear subject. (4) 'some' refers to boots; the revision makes that explicit enough.
2. Explain the apostrophe in '1990s' and the hyphen in 'well-known author'.
Read the worked answer
Write 'the 1990s' with no apostrophe: the apostrophe marks possession or a contraction, not a plural decade. Write 'a well-known author' with a hyphen because the compound adjective precedes the noun it modifies; after a linking verb, write 'The author is well known' without a hyphen. These are conventions, but PAU marking treats them as accuracy features. The candidate should check whether the compound is before a noun and whether the apostrophe is doing a possessive job.
3. The candidate argues that the original sentence is clear. How would you show that punctuation changes meaning here?
Read the worked answer
Show the candidate two versions and ask what 'they' refers to. In the original, 'most students forgot their boots, they had to borrow some' invites the reader to attach 'they' to the nearest plural, but the comma also suggests a new independent clause with no connector. The sentence is not clear; it is only guessable. Punctuation is the reader's roadmap: a comma cannot carry the weight of 'and' or a semicolon. The revision with 'and' makes the cause-effect sequence explicit and removes the ambiguity.