SAT Form, Structure, and Sense Question

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Question 1 · Medium · Reading and WritingNovember 2024 Batch 1 · Q21Form, Structure, and Sense · 0 solved

The parks of San Jose, California, seem to be making people happier. In a 2022 study, researchers ______ for a relationship between the physical location in which a social media post was created and the content of that post analyzed geotagged social media posts from San Jose. The team found that posts from the city's parks contained more words associated with happiness than other posts did. Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

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Strategy

Decide whether the blank needs a full verb or a modifier by mapping the sentence’s main clause(s). If another main verb already follows for the same subject, use a participial phrase to modify the subject instead of adding a second finite verb. Keep tense and parallel structure consistent with the surrounding clauses.

Hints (open one at a time)

Hint 1

Identify the main verb that already completes the action in the sentence after the blank.

Hint 2

Ask whether the blank should be a descriptive modifier of “researchers” or another full verb in a compound predicate.

Hint 3

Try reading the sentence as “researchers [____] … analyzed …” and choose the form that lets “analyzed” remain the main verb without needing an extra conjunction.

Step-by-step Explanation

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The trap here

SAT verb forms: when the blank needs -ing and when it needs a real verb — Choosing between "combines", "combining" and "to combine" is not about tense. It is about whether the sentence already has a main verb.