Maya Lin revolutionized memorial design in the United States. _____ stark, reflective surfaces with natural landscapes, she challenged traditional app...

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

• Maya Lin revolutionized memorial design in the United States.
• [?] stark, reflective surfaces with natural landscapes,
  • she challenged traditional approaches to commemorative architecture
    • with her Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence tells us the big picture:

• 'Maya Lin revolutionized memorial design in the United States.'
  • She changed how we think about and create memorials.

Now the second sentence gives us specifics. It starts with the blank:

• '[blank] stark, reflective surfaces with natural landscapes,'

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

• Combined, Combines, Combine, or Combining
  • They're all forms of the same verb, but different forms create different structures.

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

After that opening phrase, we get:

• 'she challenged traditional approaches to commemorative architecture with her Vietnam Veterans Memorial.'
  • This tells us the MAIN action: she challenged traditional approaches
  • The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was the way she did this challenging

Now let's understand what the opening phrase is doing:

• 'stark, reflective surfaces with natural landscapes'
  • These are the design elements she worked with
  • Stark, reflective surfaces (like the black granite wall)
  • Natural landscapes (like the grass and earth)

What do we notice about the structure here?

• We have a complete thought: 'she challenged traditional approaches...'
  • This has a subject ('she') and a verb ('challenged')
  • This is the main statement the sentence is making
• The opening phrase needs to connect to this main thought
  • If we use Combined, Combines, or Combine, we'd create ANOTHER complete clause with its own verb
  • Two complete thoughts joined by just a comma = comma splice (a run-on sentence error)
• But if we use Combining:
  • This creates a descriptive phrase, not a complete clause
  • It describes HOW Maya Lin challenged traditional approaches
  • It gives us background about her method

So the complete meaning is:

• By combining these design elements (surfaces with landscapes), she challenged traditional memorial design.

The correct answer is D. Combining - this creates a descriptive phrase that tells us about her method, while keeping 'she challenged' as the main action of the sentence.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Descriptive Phrases with -ing Verbs (Participles) vs. Complete Clauses

When you start a sentence with a verb form, you need to choose between creating a complete clause or a descriptive phrase. This choice affects the entire sentence structure:

Complete Clause (has its own subject and finite verb):

• "Maya Lin combined different elements, and she challenged traditional design."
  • Two complete thoughts properly joined with "and"
  • "combined" = finite verb with subject "Maya Lin"

Descriptive Phrase (uses -ing form, describes the subject of the main clause):

• "Combining different elements, Maya Lin challenged traditional design."
  • "Combining different elements" = descriptive phrase (called a participial phrase in grammar terms)
  • Describes HOW Maya Lin challenged traditional design
  • "Maya Lin challenged" = the main complete thought

The key rule: If you want to start a sentence with a descriptive phrase followed by a comma and then your main thought, use the -ing form. This creates one flowing sentence rather than two complete thoughts incorrectly joined by a comma.

In our question:

• "Combining stark, reflective surfaces with natural landscapes" = descriptive phrase
  • Tells us her METHOD
  • Not a complete thought on its own
• "she challenged traditional approaches" = main clause
  • The primary statement
  • Complete thought with subject and verb

This structure lets us elegantly show both what she did (challenged approaches) and how she did it (by combining these elements) in one well-constructed sentence.