Sculptor Louise Bourgeois's monumental _____ celebrated internationally for their psychological intensity and innovative use of materials and attracte...

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

• Sculptor Louise Bourgeois's monumental installations [?]
  • celebrated internationally
    • for their psychological intensity and innovative use of materials
  • and
  • attracted record-breaking audiences
    • to major museums
    • throughout her six-decade career.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts by introducing the subject:

• 'Sculptor Louise Bourgeois's monumental installations'
  • We're talking about the large-scale artworks created by sculptor Louise Bourgeois.

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• Some options just have "installations"
• Some add a comma
• Some include the word "were"

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

The sentence continues with two things these installations did:

• 'celebrated internationally for their psychological intensity and innovative use of materials'
• 'and attracted record-breaking audiences to major museums throughout her six-decade career'

Now let's understand what this is telling us:

• 'Celebrated internationally for their psychological intensity and innovative use of materials'
  • This means the installations received international acclaim - people around the world praised them for how psychologically powerful they were and how innovatively they used materials.

• 'Attracted record-breaking audiences to major museums throughout her six-decade career'
  • This means the installations drew huge numbers of visitors to major museums during Bourgeois's 60-year career.

What do we notice about the structure here?

We have two actions connected by "and":

• 'celebrated' and 'attracted'

But here's the key question: can these verb forms work on their own as the main actions of the sentence?

• 'installations celebrated internationally' - this doesn't quite work
  • 'Celebrated' here is a past participle that needs a helping verb
  • The installations didn't celebrate themselves - they WERE celebrated by others
  • So we need: 'installations WERE celebrated'

• 'installations attracted audiences' - this works fine
  • 'Attracted' can function as a complete verb on its own
  • The installations did this action themselves

So we have two parallel actions:

• WERE celebrated (passive - others celebrated them)
• attracted (active - they did this themselves)

The sentence needs "were" to complete the first verb, and we shouldn't put a comma between the subject and its verb.

The correct answer is Choice D: installations were

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Forming Complete Verbs: When Past Participles Need Helping Verbs

Some verb forms cannot stand alone as the main verb in a sentence - they need helping verbs to be complete. This is especially true in passive voice constructions (when something is being done TO the subject rather than BY the subject).

Pattern to recognize:

When something "is/was/were [past participle]" you need both parts:

• Incomplete: The books celebrated worldwide (missing helping verb)
• Complete: The books were celebrated worldwide (helping verb + past participle)

Why "were" is needed in passive constructions:

• Active voice: The critics celebrated the books (critics do the action)
• Passive voice: The books were celebrated by critics (books receive the action)

In our sentence:

• "Installations were celebrated" (passive - others celebrated them)
• "Installations attracted audiences" (active - they did this themselves)

Important punctuation rule:

• Never separate a subject from its verb with a comma
• Incorrect: The installations, were celebrated
• Correct: The installations were celebrated