During the American Civil War, Thomas Morris Chester braved the front lines as a war correspondent for the Philadelphia Press....

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

• During the American Civil War,
  • Thomas Morris Chester braved the front lines
    • as a war correspondent
      • for the Philadelphia Press.
• Amplifying the voices and experiences of Black soldiers
  • ______ (?)
    • of particular importance
      • to Chester,
        • who later became an activist and lawyer
          • during the postwar Reconstruction period.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence gives us important context:

• 'During the American Civil War, Thomas Morris Chester braved the front lines as a war correspondent for the Philadelphia Press.'
  • So Chester was a journalist reporting from the Civil War battlefields.

Now let's look at the second sentence. It starts with:

• 'Amplifying the voices and experiences of Black soldiers'
  • This describes one of Chester's goals or priorities as a correspondent.
  • "Amplifying" means making heard, giving voice to, bringing attention to.

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• We're deciding between: was / were / have been / are
• These are different forms of the verb "to be" – so we're choosing the right form to match the subject and the right time frame.

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues:

• '______ of particular importance to Chester'
  • So we're being told that amplifying these voices was important to Chester.
• 'who later became an activist and lawyer during the postwar Reconstruction period.'
  • This gives us more information about Chester's life after the war.
  • The use of "became" (past tense) reinforces that we're talking about historical events.

Now, what do we notice about the structure here?

• 'Amplifying the voices and experiences of Black soldiers' is the subject of the sentence.
  • Even though "soldiers" is plural, the subject is really the ACTION – the act of amplifying.
  • When an -ing verb form acts as the subject like this, it's treated as singular (just like "Running is fun" or "Reading helps").
• The time frame is the Civil War era – this all happened in the past.
  • Chester lived in the 1800s.
  • The passage says "who later became" (past tense).
  • We're describing what was important to Chester during that historical period.

So we need: a singular verb (to match "Amplifying") in the past tense (to match the historical time frame).

The correct answer is was.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Gerund Phrases as Subjects: Agreement and Tense

When an -ing verb form (called a gerund in grammar terms) acts as the subject of a sentence, it's treated as singular, even if the phrase contains plural nouns. Additionally, the verb tense must match the time frame being described.

Pattern with gerund subjects:

• "Swimming in cold lakes is refreshing."
  • Subject: "Swimming" (singular)
  • Verb: "is" (singular)
• "Collecting rare coins was his hobby."
  • Subject: "Collecting rare coins" (singular, even though "coins" is plural)
  • Verb: "was" (singular, past tense)

In our question:

• Subject: "Amplifying the voices and experiences of Black soldiers" (singular)
• Verb needed: "was" (singular, past tense)
• The time frame (Civil War era) requires past tense
• The gerund phrase requires a singular verb

Why the subject is singular:

Even though "soldiers" and "experiences" are plural words within the phrase, the actual subject is the ACT of amplifying – a single concept. Think of the whole phrase as one thing Chester was doing.