A modifier question tests whether an opening describing phrase describes the right noun. When the phrase tells how something was planned, read it and ask what was planned that way. Use the nearby text to name it, then find the main noun right after the comma. An opening describing phrase must describe that noun, even if extra words come before or after it. Wrong choices can include the right name without making it the main noun.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with the phrase beginning with Conceived. Ask who or what was conceived that way.
- Hint 2
Use the words after the blank as a second clue. What could retain the structure described there while its work expanded?
- Hint 3
After you’ve named what the phrase describes, find the main noun immediately after the comma. That noun has to be what the opening phrase describes.
Step-by-step
Match the phrase to the main noun
Step 1Spot the opening phrase
Read Conceived not as a command center through the comma after accountable to those campaigns. Does this phrase name what was conceived? No, so it’s a modifier, a phrase that describes the main noun right after its comma. That noun must be what was conceived as a coordinating body.
- Step 2
Name what the phrase describes
What kind of thing fits the whole description? A coordinating body accountable to those campaigns is an organization that supports the local campaigns, as Baker wanted. The words after the blank say it retained a decentralized structure while its voter-registration work grew. Together, those clues describe the organization itself, not a plan or a meeting.
- Step 3
Check the main nouns
What is the main noun at the start of each choice? In Ella Baker's proposal, the main noun is proposal; Ella Baker's only says whose plan it is, and a plan can’t serve as a coordinating body. The start the April meeting names an event where activists planned the body. And there was begins with there, which names nothing. The committee’s name later in a choice doesn’t make it the main noun.
- Step 4
Set aside the added description
In the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the committee is the main noun. The words the organization that emerged from the meeting sit between commas and describe that same committee, so set them aside. Then the committee connects directly to retained a decentralized structure, so the sentence works with that extra description removed. Choice A.