Ellipsis and Dashes

The circus dubbed the best performance on earth is coming here soon.

Which punctuation mark should be used to set off the words in bold print?

• dashes

• commas

• ellipses

He is afraid of two things ___ spiders and senior prom.

What punctuation mark should be used in the blank?

• dash

• comma

• ellipsis

Ghosts gathered______ goblins arrived_____ witches descended.

• Comma

• Ellipsis

• Dash

An ellipsis is used to ___.

• shorten a quoted passage by omitting words or phrases

• pause or hesitate in the middle of a sentence

• indicate an incomplete thought

• all answers are correct

The principal walked into the classroom and pointed at Michael . . . it wasn't until they were in the principal's office that Michael found out why.

Why is the ellipsis used in this sentence?

• passage of time

• an unfinished thought

• to show words missing from a quotation

Which of these is an en dash?

• -

• –

• —

Which of these is an em dash?

• -

• –

• —

Ellipsis is shown by which symbol?

• ""

• ()

• .

• ...

Which sentence(s) used an ellipsis the correct way?
If only she had . . . Oh, it doesn’t matter now.
I wasn’t really . . . well, what I mean . . . see, the thing is . . . I didn’t mean it.
She opened the door . . . and saw . . . a cake!

• and C

• just B

• none of them

• all of them

Change this sentence to correctly use the ellipses: “The parade had fire trucks, floats, and dancers who wore sparkly, flowing dresses.”

• “The parade had fire trucks, floats, and dancers ….”

• “The parade had… who wore sparkly, flowing dresses.”

• “The ... had fire trucks, floats, and dancers who wore sparkly, flowing dresses.”

• “The parade had fire trucks, floats, and dancers… sparkly, flowing dresses.”