A modifier question tests whether an opening phrase describes the right noun. Read that phrase and name who or what it describes, including when it tells you what someone has already done. The main noun right after the comma must be that person or thing. Find each choice’s main noun, then read the whole sentence with it in mind. Mentioning the right person or thing later doesn’t fix a phrase attached to the wrong noun.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the phrase before the blank. Who has spent decades studying flightless birds?
- Hint 2
Test the main noun right after the opening comma. Read that noun as the one who did the studying, and ask whether that reading makes sense.
Step-by-step
Match the opening phrase to its noun
Step 1Name who the phrase describes
Having spent decades studying flightless birds describes someone without naming them, so this question turns on who follows the comma. Who spent those decades studying? The ending, leading her to become the foremost authority on ostrich locomotion, points to a person. That person must be the main noun right after the opening comma, because that's the noun this phrase describes.
- Step 2
Check the main nouns
Could numerous articles or the publication have spent decades studying flightless birds? With numerous articles, the main noun is articles; with the publication, it's publication, the act of publishing. Neither articles nor publishing can study birds. The words after by name the publisher, but they don't make her the main noun after the opening comma.
- Step 3
Look past the emphasis
The wording it was highlights the scientist, so why doesn't it fix the opening? Here, it is an empty pronoun, meaning it doesn't stand for a person or thing. The scientist comes after was, but the sentence still puts it after the opening comma. That leaves Having spent decades studying flightless birds attached to a word that names no one, even though we can work out who really did the studying.
- Step 4
Read the whole sentence
The direct start Dr. Nguyen published gives us the scientist as the main noun. Does the rest of the sentence work with that start? Dr. Nguyen published numerous articles can stand on its own, and leading her to become the foremost authority on ostrich locomotion adds the result of her work. Choice D.