A modifier question tests whether you can connect an opening describing phrase to the right noun. When the opening names a kind of person or thing, ask who or what it describes. Name that person or thing first, using the text rather than how a sentence sounds. The rule is that an opening describing phrase describes the main noun after its comma, so find that noun in each completed sentence. A name elsewhere in the sentence can't repair a mismatch.
Hints
- Hint 1
Focus on the description before the blank. What does it tell you about the person or thing it describes?
- Hint 2
What does alumna mean, and who or what could that phrase describe?
- Hint 3
Find the main noun in each completed sentence, then test whether the opening description can apply to it.
Step-by-step
Match the opening to its main noun
Step 1Read the opening description
The sentence starts with An alumna of the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, a describing phrase called a modifier. Who could this phrase describe? An alumna is a woman who graduated from a school, so the main noun after the comma must name that graduate.
- Step 2
Find the studio's main noun
Let's test the experimental studio: what is its main noun? It's studio, because of Claire Esmonde tells us whose studio it is rather than making the owner the main noun. A studio can't be An alumna, because it isn't a school graduate. The opening description describes the studio instead of the graduate. Her name later in the phrase doesn't change which noun the opening describes.
- Step 3
Test the work and the objects
The wording gaining recognition is reverses the usual order, but its main noun is work, so it calls her work the graduate. Can furniture and buildings be a school graduate? Those objects aren't people either, and they can't gain recognition as both an architect and a furniture designer. Her work and the things she makes don't name the woman herself.
- Step 4
Put the person in place
Which start names the graduate herself? Claire Esmonde has gained recognition puts Claire Esmonde right after the comma. Read through creating structures and objects: she has gained recognition as an architect and furniture designer, and she creates those things. She is the person all these descriptions refer to. Choice B.