A pronoun question with a description after a comma tests what a pronoun stands for and what job it does. Sort the forms by their jobs, then read around the blank. Ask whether the pronoun names who or what does something, receives something, or owns the next noun. Read back to find the noun being described, and check whether it's a person or a thing. Nearby nouns can pull you toward a form that makes the wrong connection.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the words right after the blank. Which noun goes with the verb hovers?
- Hint 2
Read back past the blank. Which earlier noun is being described, and how is it connected to the frame?
Step-by-step
Match the noun and the job
Step 1Find the missing connection
After the blank, elevated concrete-and-glass frame hovers gives us a noun followed by its verb. What job is left for the missing pronoun? The frame is already the thing that hovers, so the blank doesn't need another word naming what does that. It needs to link the frame to something named before the comma. The missing connection is who or what the frame belongs to, so let's find that owner.
- Step 2
Find what has the frame
Who or what has the frame? The São Paulo Museum of Art does, while architect Lina Bo Bardi is the person who designed the building. The frame above the street and the open plaza beneath describe the building's structure, not the architect. So the missing pronoun refers to the museum. We now need a form that can show belonging for a thing, not only for a person.
- Step 3
Choose the form that shows belonging
Whose is possessive, which means it shows who or what owns the thing named after it. It can refer to things as well as people, so it works for the museum's elevated concrete-and-glass frame. Who, which, and that don't show that ownership. The museum's frame calls for whose. Choice D.