An apostrophe question with several nouns tests whether each noun owns something or is a plain plural. Test each noun on its own by reading what follows it, including words after the blank. An apostrophe shows that a noun owns the thing named next, and describing words can come between them. Then count the owners: one takes ’s, while several ending in s take s’. A noun that owns nothing takes no apostrophe, even beside another noun.
Hints
- Hint 1
Begin right after “composed of” and test whether the first noun owns anything. Read what comes next rather than relying on how the phrase sounds.
- Hint 2
Read to “early years” and look for who or what those years belong to. Then return to the opening of the sentence to count the owners.
Step-by-step
Test each noun on its own
Step 1Test the first noun
After is composed of, test the noun that names what makes up the brochure. Does that noun own what follows it? Here, tracing is a verb: it tells what the essays do, not what belongs to them. The brochure contains essays that trace a period of history, so the first noun needs the plain plural essays. The form essay’s would instead mark one essay as an owner, which this phrase doesn’t call for.
- Step 2
Read past the blank
What comes after the last noun in the blank? Read beyond the choices to early years: early describes years, so years is the noun that might belong to the movement. Use the of test by turning the nouns around to say the years of the movement. That says what the sentence means, so the movement owns the years and needs an apostrophe. Having several years doesn’t tell us how many movements there are, so we still need to count the owners.
- Step 3
Count the owners
How many movements does the sentence name? The opening names Cubism, so the owner is one movement rather than several. One owner takes ’s, giving movement’s, while movements’ would mean several movements own the years. That gives us essays tracing the movement’s. Choice A.