A modifier question tests whether an opening describing phrase is attached to the right person or thing. The phrase describes the main noun right after its comma. With an -ing opening, ask who or what is doing the action, and name that person or thing from the text. Then check each choice’s main noun and read the full sentence. The right name elsewhere in a choice doesn’t fix a wrong noun at the start.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the phrase before the blank and ask who or what is doing the looking.
- Hint 2
Find the main noun right after the comma and test whether it can be the one looking through the logs.
Step-by-step
Name the reader, then check the main noun
Step 1Name what the opening describes
The sentence opens with Looking through decades-old shipping logs, then a comma and the blank. Who is doing the looking? The phrase leaves that person unnamed, so we need a noun that names the reader. An opening describing phrase describes the main noun right after its comma, which means that noun must be the person reading the logs.
- Step 2
Look past the familiar name
What does each choice actually put right after the comma? In maritime historian Carla Benson's discovery, the main noun is discovery; Carla Benson's only says whose discovery it is, and a discovery can’t read logs. In the doubling of the expedition's cargo, the main noun is doubling, which names a change in the cargo rather than a reader. The version starting with it was puts it after the comma, but that it doesn’t name anyone. Mentioning Carla Benson later doesn’t make her the main noun that Looking through describes.
- Step 3
Put the reader first and finish the sentence
Which start gives Looking through a person to describe? In maritime historian Carla Benson discovered, the main noun is Carla Benson, and maritime historian is her title. Then discovered leads into that the expedition’s cargo had mysteriously doubled in transit, giving us a full sentence that says what she learned. Choice D.