Question 200·Medium·Boundaries
Under the oppressive heat and humidity of the tropical afternoon, ______ the team cataloged each artifact before packing it for analysis.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
For punctuation/boundary questions, first strip the sentence down to its core subject and verb so you can see what is extra information. Identify whether the words in the blank form an introductory or descriptive phrase (like a participial phrase) and decide if that phrase is essential or nonessential; nonessential phrases are usually set off with commas as a whole unit. Avoid choices that insert commas inside tight word groups (such as between a verb and its adverb) or that leave no clear comma boundary between modifiers and the main clause.
Hints
Locate the main clause
Cover up everything before “the team” and read from there: what are the main subject and verb, and what does that tell you about where introductory or descriptive material should end?
Classify the words in the blank
Notice that every option contains “working” and “meticulously.” Think about which word is the action form and which describes how the action is done. Should those two words be split by a comma?
Think about comma placement around descriptive phrases
The sentence already has a comma after “afternoon.” The phrase in the blank comes before “the team.” Ask: should this entire descriptive phrase be set off from the main clause, and if so, where should the boundary comma(s) go?
Test each choice by reading it aloud
Read the sentence with each option. Which version sounds like a smooth, complete sentence where the extra description is clearly separated, without awkward breaks between words that belong together?
Step-by-step Explanation
Find the core sentence
Ignore the introductory phrase for a moment and find the main subject and verb.
- The subject is “the team.”
- The main verb is “cataloged.”
So the core sentence is: “The team cataloged each artifact before packing it for analysis.” Everything before “the team” is extra descriptive information that must be attached correctly with punctuation.
Identify the type of phrase in the blank
Look at the words that will go in the blank: they all start with “working” and include “meticulously.”
- “Working” is a participle (verb form used as an adjective).
- “Meticulously” is an adverb describing how they were working.
Together, “working meticulously” is a participial phrase describing “the team.” It is extra, nonessential description and should be set off from the main clause with commas as one chunk. Also, an adverb normally should not be split from the verb it modifies by a comma.
Check how commas affect the phrase
Now think about what commas are already in the sentence and where another comma might be needed.
- We already have a comma after the introductory prepositional phrase: “Under the oppressive heat and humidity of the tropical afternoon,”
- Then we insert our descriptive phrase.
- Then we reach the subject: “the team…”
Because this descriptive phrase comes between the introductory phrase and the subject, it should be enclosed as a unit, and there should not be a comma inside that unit splitting “working” from “meticulously.”
Eliminate choices that split or mis-punctuate the phrase
Evaluate each answer choice:
- A) working meticulously – No comma before “the team,” so the descriptive phrase runs directly into the subject: “working meticulously the team,” which is ungrammatical.
- C) working, meticulously, – Puts commas around “meticulously”: “working, meticulously,” which wrongly separates the adverb from the verb it modifies.
- D) working, meticulously – Again inserts a comma between “working” and “meticulously,” and still leaves no comma before “the team.”
The only option that treats “working meticulously” as a single descriptive unit and sets it off correctly from “the team” with a comma is B) working meticulously,. So the correct answer is “working meticulously,”.