Midway through her 1968 jazz album A Monastic Trio, Alice Coltrane switches instruments, swapping the piano for the harp. With...

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

Sentence Structure

Sentence 1:

• Midway through her 1968 jazz album A Monastic Trio,
• Alice Coltrane switches instruments, swapping the piano for the harp.

Sentence 2:

• With the same fluid style that Coltrane was famous for on piano,
• she [?] her fingers across the harp strings
• and creates a radiant sound.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence sets the scene:

• We're talking about Alice Coltrane's 1968 jazz album
• Midway through the album, she switches from piano to harp

Now the second sentence tells us about how she plays the harp:

• 'With the same fluid style that Coltrane was famous for on piano'
  • She brings that same flowing, graceful style she had on piano

This is where we have the blank:

• 'she ______ her fingers across the harp strings'

Let's look at the choices:

• A. sweep (base form)
• B. are sweeping (plural, present progressive)
• C. were sweeping (plural, past progressive)
• D. sweeps (singular, present)

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

• 'and creates a radiant sound'

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The subject is 'she' (referring to Alice Coltrane)
  • 'She' is singular, so we need a singular verb form
• We have two actions connected by 'and':
  • First action: she ______ her fingers across the strings
  • Second action: she creates a radiant sound
• These two verbs describe parallel actions happening together
  • Notice 'creates' is present tense and singular
  • The blank verb needs to match this form

So we need sweeps - it's singular (matching 'she') and present tense (matching 'creates').

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Verbs to Their Subject in Number

When you have a singular subject (like "she," "he," or "it"), the verb must take its singular form. In present tense, this usually means adding an "s" or "es":

• Singular: She sweeps, he creates, it flows
• Plural: They sweep, we create, you flow

Adding the Parallel Structure Layer:

When two verbs describe actions by the same subject and are connected with "and," they should match in tense:

• Present tense parallel: She sweeps her fingers across the strings and creates a radiant sound
• Both "sweeps" and "creates" are singular present tense

In this question:

• Subject: "she" (Alice Coltrane) = singular
• Blank verb: must be singular → "sweeps"
• Parallel verb: "creates" (present tense)
• Blank verb: must also be present tense → "sweeps"

The answer is D: sweeps