A modifier question tests whether an opening describing phrase points to the right noun. Read that phrase and name what it describes; if it says something was done, ask who or what it was done to. An opening describing phrase must describe the main noun right after its comma. Then check each choice’s main noun and read the whole sentence to check its verb. Nearby details can sound right while naming something the opening phrase cannot describe.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with the phrase before the blank and ask who or what has been translated from the clay tablets.
- Hint 2
Check each completion’s main noun against the opening phrase. Then read through illustrate and ask whether that noun needs this verb form.
Step-by-step
Match the opening phrase to its noun
Step 1Spot the describing phrase
Having been translated from Sumerian clay tablets comes before the comma and doesn't name what was translated. This is a modifier, a phrase that describes a noun, so the blank must name the noun it describes. An opening modifier describes the main noun right after its comma.
- Step 2
Name what was translated
What was translated from the tablets? It must be writing that has been put into another language. The rest of the sentence says those writings illustrate that early merchants meticulously tracked every barley shipment, meaning show how carefully the merchants tracked their goods. The phrase describes the written material itself.
- Step 3
Check each main noun
Which main noun in each completion could Having been translated describe? The words meticulous tracking put tracking first, and that activity isn't the translated writing. With every barley shipment, the main noun is shipment, and goods aren't what was translated from the tablets. In early merchants' method, the main noun is method; early merchants' only says whose method it is. That completion names how the merchants tracked their goods, not the material translated from the tablets.
- Step 4
Read the matching completion
The main noun in the surviving accounting records is records, which fits Having been translated because records are written material. Does this also work with the verb illustrate? Because records is plural, it takes the plural verb form, so the sentence can go on to tell us what those writings show. Choice A.