Farouk El-Baz, a geologist and space scientist, _______ part of the team that selected the lunar landing sites for the...

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

• Farouk El-Baz,
• a geologist and space scientist,
• ______ part of the team
  • that selected the lunar landing sites
  • for the Apollo program
  • during the 1960s and 1970s.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts with a person:

• 'Farouk El-Baz'
  • This is the person the sentence is about

Then we get some descriptive information:

• 'a geologist and space scientist'
  • This tells us about his professional background
  • Notice the commas around this phrase - it's extra information describing Farouk El-Baz

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

• 'Farouk El-Baz ______ part of the team'

Let's look at our choices:

• A. are (plural, present tense)
• B. was (singular, past tense)
• C. have been (plural, present perfect)
• D. were (plural, past tense)

What do we need here? The subject of this sentence is 'Farouk El-Baz' - one person, which is singular. The phrase 'a geologist and space scientist' is just extra description set off by commas, so it doesn't change the fact that we have a singular subject.

So we need a singular verb. That means B. was is the only option that matches our singular subject.

Now let's read the rest to see the complete picture:

• 'part of the team that selected the lunar landing sites for the Apollo program during the 1960s and 1970s'
  • This confirms we're talking about past events (the 1960s and 1970s)
  • So past tense 'was' makes perfect sense

The correct answer is B. was

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Verbs to Their Subjects (Subject-Verb Agreement)

The verb in a sentence must match its subject in number - singular subjects take singular verbs, and plural subjects take plural verbs. This agreement rule (called subject-verb agreement in grammar terms) still applies even when descriptive phrases separate the subject from the verb.

Key pattern to watch for:

• Singular subject: The scientist works on the project.
  • "scientist" = singular → "works" = singular verb

• Singular subject with descriptive phrase in between: The scientist, along with her colleagues, works on the project.
  • "scientist" = still singular (the phrase "along with her colleagues" doesn't change this)
  • → "works" = singular verb

• In this question: Farouk El-Baz, a geologist and space scientist, was part of the team...
  • "Farouk El-Baz" = singular subject (one person)
  • "a geologist and space scientist" = descriptive phrase set off by commas
  • → "was" = singular verb matching the singular subject

The trick is to identify the true subject and not be distracted by descriptive phrases that come between the subject and the verb.