What is the reason for using a variety of sentence styles, sentence lengths, and punctuation in an essay?
a. to persuade the reader
b. to hold the reader's attention and make the text easier to read
c. to prevent the reader from predicting what thesis's conclusion will say
d. to display mastery of all of the basic sentence structures and their associated punctuation

The correct answer is B. To hold the reader's attention and make the text easier to read

Explanation:

In almost any kind of text including essays, it is recommended to include different types of sentences this includes simple, complex and compound sentences; long and short sentences and sentence with different grammatical structures as well as adequate punctuation marks. This is important because the variety in sentences makes the text dynamic which means the text is not monotonous and holds the attention of the reader, and also because ideas tend to require different types of sentence and punctuation to be explained which guarantees the reader can understand the text. Considering this, the reason for using different sentences and punctuation is "to hold the reader's attention and make the text easier to read".