A modifier question tests whether an opening describing phrase is attached to the right noun. An opening describing phrase must describe the main noun right after its comma. For a phrase that says something was done, ask, who or what was it done to? Use the nearby text to name that person or thing, then check the main noun after the comma. A choice can mention the right thing later and still attach the phrase to the wrong noun.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the sentence before the blank for what the team does with details from the sources.
- Hint 2
Ask what was designed to accommodate conflicts, then check the main noun right after the comma. The opening phrase must describe that noun.
Step-by-step
Name what the opening phrase describes
Step 1Find what was designed
The phrase Designed to accommodate conflicts among those sources opens the last sentence and leaves out what was designed, so the blank must name it. This is a modifier, a describing phrase that must describe the main noun right after its comma. What was designed to handle disagreement among the sources? The previous sentence says the team is combining details from each source into a digital model, so the phrase describes that model.
- Step 2
Check the main nouns
What happens if we put the people first? Moreno and her team makes the phrase describe the researchers, while visitors to the team's website makes it describe the visitors. Neither group is the thing designed to handle conflicting sources. With conflicts among the historical sources, the conflicts themselves would become the thing designed to handle those conflicts. Each of those openings puts something other than the designed model right after the comma, even when the model appears later.
- Step 3
Read the full sentence
The start the model presents makes the model the main noun right after the comma, so the opening phrase describes what was designed. Does the rest of the sentence explain how it can accommodate conflicts among those sources? Yes: several plausible versions leave room for different accounts, rather than declaring one reconstruction definitive. Choice A.