A modifier question tests whether a describing phrase connects to the right person or thing. Start with an opening phrase that describes an activity, and ask who does it. Name who the phrase describes, because an opening phrase describing an activity must describe the sentence's subject, the person or thing the sentence says something about. Then find that subject in each choice and check whether it can do the activity named in the opening phrase.
Hints
- Hint 1
The words before the blank describe someone reviewing photographs. Ask who is doing the reviewing.
- Hint 2
Find the subject after the comma. Does that person or thing do the reviewing?
Step-by-step
Find who is reviewing
Step 1Name what the opening phrase describes
The sentence opens with While reviewing hundreds of photographs for the museum's upcoming exhibit, which describes someone doing the reviewing without naming them. Who is doing that work? We're looking for the person reviewing the photographs, not the photographs or the lighting being studied. An opening modifier, a describing phrase, must describe the sentence's subject, the person or thing the sentence says something about, so that subject has to be the reviewer.
- Step 2
Look past names that come later
What do the openings it was and noticing occurred make the phrase describe? The version beginning it was has it as its subject, which doesn't name the reviewer; the curator appears later in the sentence. In noticing occurred, the subject is noticing, the act of noticing, while by the curator only names who did it. The pronoun it doesn't name a reviewer, and an act can't do the work of reviewing hundreds of photographs, so the curator's later appearance doesn't connect the opening phrase correctly.
- Step 3
Put the reviewer first
Could dramatic shifts in lighting be the reviewer? That version makes shifts the subject, but shifts can't do the work of reviewing hundreds of photographs. The version beginning the curator noticed makes the person doing the reviewing the subject. Read it through with that the lighting techniques had shifted dramatically over time: the curator reviews the photographs and notices the change, so the whole sentence connects both tasks to the same person. Choice B.