Classical composer Florence Price's 1927 move to Chicago marked a turning point in her career. It was there that Price...

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

• Classical composer Florence Price's 1927 move to Chicago
  • marked a turning point in her career.

• It was there that Price
  • premiered her First Symphony
    • —a piece
      • that was praised for blending traditional Romantic motifs
        • with aspects of Black folk music—
  • and [?] supportive relationships with other Black artists.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence tells us the context:

• Florence Price was a classical composer who moved to Chicago in 1927.
• This move was a turning point in her career.

The second sentence tells us what happened in Chicago:

• "It was there that Price premiered her First Symphony"
  • She introduced/performed her First Symphony for the first time

• We get extra information about the symphony in the dashes:
  • It blended traditional Romantic motifs with Black folk music
  • People praised it for this combination

Now here's where we need to fill in the blank:

• "and ______ supportive relationships with other Black artists."

Let's look at our choices:

1. developing
2. developed
3. to develop
4. having developed

What do we notice about the structure here?

• Price did two things in Chicago:
  • She premiered her First Symphony
  • She ______ supportive relationships

• These two actions are connected by "and"
  • This means they need to have the same grammatical form
  • "Premiered" is past tense
  • So the blank needs to be past tense too

The correct answer is B. developed

This creates a matching pair:

• Price premiered her First Symphony and developed supportive relationships
• Both verbs in the same form, describing what she accomplished during this important period in Chicago

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Verb Forms with "and" (Parallel Structure)

When you connect two or more actions with "and" (or "or"), they should have the same grammatical form. This creates what's called parallel structure in grammar terms.

Pattern:

• Subject + Verb₁ + and + Verb₂
• Both verbs must be in the same tense and form

Examples:

• ✓ Correct: "She wrote the novel and published it in 2020."
  • Both verbs in past tense

• ✗ Incorrect: "She wrote the novel and publishing it in 2020."
  • Mixed forms (past tense + "-ing" form)

• ✓ Correct: "The students study math and practice writing."
  • Both verbs in present tense

• ✗ Incorrect: "The students study math and to practice writing."
  • Mixed forms (present tense + infinitive)

In this question:

• "Price premiered her First Symphony and developed supportive relationships"
• Both verbs in past tense, creating proper parallel structure
• This shows the two major accomplishments she achieved in Chicago during this turning point in her career