A verb form question tests whether a blank needs a main verb or a form that only describes. Sort the choices: main verbs say what a subject does or is, while describing forms can't stand alone. Then find the subject and count its main verbs through the period. For a noun after a comma, ask how it connects, because a comma alone can't join two full sentences. A phrase can sound right while the sentence is still broken.
Hints
- Hint 1
Find the subject and main verb in the words before the comma after “turbulent.” Do those words already make a full sentence?
- Hint 2
Check the words introducing the studies. Is there anything between the comma and “her field studies in Samoa” that joins them to the first part?
- Hint 3
Read all the way to the period, and ask what “shaped” belongs to. Then decide whether the comma allows a new full sentence or an added detail.
Step-by-step
Count the main verbs and check the comma
Step 1Find the full sentence before the comma
Margaret Mead argued that adolescence is not universally turbulent has Mead as its subject, the person it's about, and argued as its main verb. Can this part stand alone? Yes, so the words before the comma already make a full sentence. The verb form must let us add the studies to that sentence.
- Step 2
Check how the studies can be added
Next, her field studies in Samoa is a new noun group after the comma. Does a word such as and join it to the full sentence? No, so giving the studies a main verb would create a comma splice, an error that joins two full sentences with only a comma. The later words that shaped teenagers’ experiences describe the differences, so shaped doesn't give the studies a main verb.
- Step 3
Test whether the past form only describes
Could revealed only describe something done to the studies? Try adding were before it: “the studies were revealed differences” doesn't make sense. The studies reveal differences in social support systems, so revealed is a main verb here. Like reveal, it would turn the words about the studies into a second full sentence.
- Step 4
Attach a noun with a describing form
Which revealed describes the studies, but it doesn't connect her field studies in Samoa to Mead's sentence. How can we add what the studies showed? Because the studies show the differences, the -ing form describes what they did: revealing. The noun and this describing form together add a detail after the comma. Choice D.