A recent study tracked the number of bee species present in twenty-seven New York apple orchards over a ten-year period....

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• A recent study
  • tracked the number of bee species
    • present in twenty-seven New York apple orchards
  • over a ten-year period.

• [Entomologist Heather Grab + (?)]
  • found
    • that when wild growth near an orchard was cleared,
    • the number of different bee species visiting the orchard decreased.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start with the first sentence:

• 'A recent study tracked the number of bee species present in twenty-seven New York apple orchards over a ten-year period.'
  • This tells us someone did a long-term study watching how many different types of bees visited apple orchards in New York.

Now the second sentence begins with our blank and tells us who did the study:

• '[Blank] found that...'

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• All choices give us: "Entomologist Heather Grab"
• They differ in punctuation - some have colons, some have commas

To see what works here, let's read the complete sentence:

• 'Entomologist Heather Grab [?] found that when wild growth near an orchard was cleared, the number of different bee species visiting the orchard decreased.'

Let's understand what this is telling us:

• An entomologist (a scientist who studies insects) named Heather Grab discovered something through this study
• What she found: when people cleared away wild plants near an orchard, fewer types of bees came to visit

What do we notice about the structure here?

• "Entomologist Heather Grab" is the subject - the person doing the action
  • "Entomologist" is the professional title
  • "Heather Grab" is the person's name
  • Together they form one complete unit: title + name

• "found" is the verb - what she did

• These two parts go directly together:
  • Title + name → verb
  • Subject → action

When a title directly identifies someone by name and they're the subject performing an action, they form a single, smooth noun phrase. No punctuation should come between them or between the subject and its verb.

So we need: Choice C - "Entomologist Heather Grab" (no punctuation)

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Punctuation with Titles and Names as Subjects

When a professional title or designation directly precedes and identifies a person's name, and together they serve as the subject of the sentence, they form a unified noun phrase that needs no punctuation:

Pattern: Title + Name = Subject → Verb

Example 1:

• Correct: Astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space
• "Astronaut" (title) + "Sally Ride" (name) = complete subject
• No comma needed before the verb "became"

Example 2:

• Correct: Professor James Chen published groundbreaking research
• "Professor" (title) + "James Chen" (name) = complete subject
• No comma before "published"

Example 3 (from our question):

• Correct: Entomologist Heather Grab found that...
• "Entomologist" (title) + "Heather Grab" (name) = complete subject
• No punctuation before "found"

Why this matters:

When the title and name work together to identify who is performing the action, they should flow as one smooth unit directly into the verb. Adding punctuation (commas or colons) would incorrectly break up this natural subject-verb relationship.

Note: This is different from situations where you're providing additional information about someone already mentioned (called an appositive in grammar terms), which would require commas: "The researcher, an entomologist from Cornell, conducted the study."