A modifier question with an opening phrase about doing something tests whether you can tell who did it. Read the phrase and ask who or what it describes. An opening describing phrase describes the main noun right after its comma, so name that person or thing. Then find the main noun at the start of each choice and read it as the one doing the work. Mentioning the right person elsewhere in the sentence doesn't make that person the main noun.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with the phrase about filming. Who or what is doing the filming in that phrase?
- Hint 2
For each completed sentence, find the main noun right after the opening comma. Does that noun name whoever filmed the hummingbirds?
Step-by-step
Find who did the filming
Step 1Name who filmed
The opening After filming thousands of hummingbirds in flight tells us someone filmed the birds, but it doesn't name that person. This is a modifier, a phrase that describes someone or something in a sentence. Who did the filming? The researchers did, so the main noun right after the comma must name them.
- Step 2
Test footage and evidence
What does filming thousands of hummingbirds in flight describe if we start with footage or evidence? Either start makes footage or evidence the one filming the birds. But these are results of the researchers' work, not people who filmed. The phrases to the researchers and for the researchers name people later without making them the main noun after the opening comma.
- Step 3
Check what it names
In it was discovered by the researchers, it comes first. Does it name whoever was filming thousands of hummingbirds in flight? That empty it names no person or thing, while by the researchers tells us who made the discovery. The researchers are in the sentence, but they aren't the main noun described by the opening phrase.
- Step 4
Read the matching sentence
Read the researchers discovered with After filming thousands of hummingbirds in flight. The researchers are the main noun right after the comma, so this sentence says they filmed the birds. What did they discover? The rest of the sentence says the birds generate lift on both wing strokes, completing what the researchers discovered. Choice D.