A modifier question tests whether an opening describing phrase is attached to the right noun. Cover the choices and name what the phrase describes, using the rest of the sentence for clues. If the phrase says something was built or made, ask what was built or made. That thing must be the main noun right after the comma. A familiar name in a choice doesn't settle the question if the words around it make something else the main noun.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at what was built: what does the opening phrase say was made from modules and strong enough to support vehicles?
- Hint 2
Use the words after the blank as clues. How does the reference to openings in a surface help you work out what the opening phrase describes?
- Hint 3
Test the main noun right after the comma. Read the opening phrase as a description of that noun, and ask whether that noun could be built from modules.
Step-by-step
Match what was built to the main noun
Step 1Name what was built
Built from interlocking porous modules describes something without naming it. This is a modifier, a describing phrase, so the main noun right after its comma must name what was built. What was built to support parked vehicles? The later words openings in the surface point to a physical surface.
- Step 2
Test benefit and runoff
Can each choice's main noun be described as “Built from interlocking porous modules”? In one important benefit, the main noun is benefit, which names a useful result rather than a built surface. In stormwater runoff is reduced, the main noun is stormwater runoff, the water leaving the surface. Neither noun names what was built.
- Step 3
Find the main noun behind the apostrophe
The phrase permeable pavement’s reduction needs a closer look: what's its main noun? It's reduction, not permeable pavement. The apostrophe makes permeable pavement’s tell us whose reduction it is. So the opening would say a reduction was “Built from interlocking porous modules.” A reduction is a decrease in runoff, not a surface made of modules. Naming pavement as the owner doesn't make pavement the main noun.
- Step 4
Put the surface first and finish the sentence
The version beginning permeable pavement reduces makes permeable pavement itself the main noun after the comma. Does the rest work? The words before the colon form a complete sentence, so a colon can follow them to introduce an explanation. The words water passes through openings in the surface explain how runoff is reduced. Choice C.