A modifier question tests whether an opening describing phrase connects to the right subject, the sentence's main noun. Read the phrase and ask who has the reason it gives. An opening describing phrase must describe the main noun right after its comma. Check that noun, then read through the unchanged ending to see whether the sentence still works. Wrong choices often attach the opening description to a subject that doesn't make sense.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the reason in the opening phrase. Who is motivated by the desire to preserve local history?
- Hint 2
Check the main subject, then read to the period. Does the opening phrase describe that subject, and does the completed sentence work with the words after the blank?
Step-by-step
Find who is motivated
Step 1Name who has the desire
The sentence opens with Motivated by a desire to preserve local history, which gives someone a reason for collecting the town's stories. Who has that desire? It has to be the person doing the collecting. An opening modifier, a phrase that describes someone or something, must describe the subject, the main noun after its comma. So we need the collector in that spot, not the things collected.
- Step 2
Test the main nouns
Which starts give the desire to something other than the collector? In the project required, the main noun is project, so the sentence gives the project a desire to preserve local history. In oral histories were collected, the subject is oral histories, so the sentence gives that desire to the stories themselves. Each start gives the collector's desire to the wrong subject, so a person's name later in the sentence doesn't repair it.
- Step 3
Use the unchanged ending
Now read the remaining starts with two years collecting oral histories, which is already after the blank and can't be removed. The version beginning spending two years ends the blank with collected, making Consuelo collect two years rather than oral histories. What verb tells us how a person used those two years? Consuelo spent puts the motivated person in the subject's place, and spent tells us she used the two years for collecting. Choice C.