Recent analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed unprecedented details about distant galaxies. Among the various...

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

• Recent analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope
  • has revealed unprecedented details about distant galaxies.
• Among the various celestial objects photographed,
  • the star cluster
    • containing thousands of newly formed stellar bodies
  • [?] particularly intriguing to astrophysicists
    • studying early universe conditions.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence gives us context:

• "Recent analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed unprecedented details about distant galaxies."
  • New telescope data has shown us things about distant galaxies that we've never seen before.

Now the second sentence tells us about one specific finding:

• "Among the various celestial objects photographed,"
  • Out of all the different space objects the telescope captured,
• "the star cluster containing thousands of newly formed stellar bodies"
  • there's one particular star cluster - a group of stars that contains thousands of newly formed stars

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

• "the star cluster... _____ particularly intriguing"

Let's look at our choices:

• have been (plural)
• is (singular)
• are (plural)
• were (plural)

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The subject of this sentence is "the star cluster" - that's singular (one cluster)
• The phrase "containing thousands of newly formed stellar bodies" is describing the star cluster
  • Yes, it mentions "thousands" (plural), but that's INSIDE the descriptive phrase
  • It's telling us what's IN the cluster, not changing the fact that we're talking about ONE cluster

Think of it like this:

• "The box containing hundreds of marbles" - the box is still one box (singular), even though there are many marbles (plural) inside it

So we need a singular verb to match "the star cluster": is

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

• "particularly intriguing to astrophysicists studying early universe conditions"
  • This star cluster is especially interesting to scientists who are researching how the early universe worked

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Subject-Verb Agreement with Intervening Modifiers

The verb in a sentence must agree with the actual subject, not with nouns that appear in descriptive phrases (called modifiers in grammar terms) between the subject and the verb.

The pattern:

Subject (singular) + descriptive phrase containing plural nouns + verb (must be singular)

Example 1:

• The scientist studying multiple theories is presenting today
• Subject: "The scientist" (singular)
• Descriptive phrase: "studying multiple theories" (contains plural "theories")
• Verb: "is" (singular, agrees with "scientist")

Example 2:

• The museum featuring ancient artifacts attracts many visitors
• Subject: "The museum" (singular)
• Descriptive phrase: "featuring ancient artifacts" (contains plural "artifacts")
• Verb: "attracts" (singular, agrees with "museum")

In our question:

• Subject: "the star cluster" (singular)
• Descriptive phrase: "containing thousands of newly formed stellar bodies" (contains plural "thousands" and "bodies")
• Verb: "is" (singular, agrees with "star cluster")

The key is to identify the true subject and not be distracted by plural nouns that are simply describing it!