Final answer:
The correctly written sentence is D) "Johnny, I am very happy with your test score," said Sarah, with appropriate capitalization and punctuation. Understanding the structure of independent clauses and the role of the subject and verb is crucial to forming proper sentences.
Step-by-step explanation:
The sentence that is written correctly out of the given options is D) "Johnny, I am very happy with your test score," said Sarah.
This sentence is properly punctuated and capitalized. It starts with a capital letter, the pronoun 'I' is correctly capitalized, and the speaker's name 'Sarah' is also capitalized, which is standard for proper nouns. The sentence ends with a period outside the quotation marks, which is the correct placement in American English.
Remember, the first word of the quote is capitalized as it begins a sentence, and 'said' is written in lowercase because it follows a comma after the quotation. It's also important not to capitalize 'said' because it's not a proper noun or the start of a new sentence.
Proper sentence structure and punctuation are essential in written communication. They ensure that the meaning of a sentence is clear and easy to understand. For instance, independent clauses can be used to form a complete sentence, with the verb denoting action and the subject indicating who is performing the action. As in Example 2, 'Tell my sister that I miss her; tell my brother that it gets much easier,' each clause provides a direct request with an implied subject 'you,' which is common in imperative sentences.