The city of Amsterdam partnered with consultants to develop Public Eye—an ethical AI-powered crowd-monitoring _______ video streamed from cameras in...

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

• The city of Amsterdam
  • partnered with consultants
    • to develop Public Eye—
      • an ethical AI-powered crowd-monitoring system [?]
        • analyzing video streamed from cameras
          • in heavily touristed areas,
• the AI algorithm
  • determines crowd sizes
    • without, in the interest of protecting individuals' privacy,
      • retaining the footage.

Where [?] represents:

• A: —analyzing
• B: , analyzing
• C: . Analyzing
• D: analyzing

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

The city of Amsterdam partnered with consultants to develop something called "Public Eye."

The sentence then uses an em dash to tell us what Public Eye is:

• "an ethical AI-powered crowd-monitoring system"
  • So it's a system that monitors crowds using AI
  • and it's designed to be ethical

Now we reach the blank: "system [?] analyzing video..."

Let's look at the choices:

• We need to decide what punctuation (if any) should come between "system" and "analyzing"
• The choices give us: an em dash, a comma, a period, or nothing

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

After the blank, the sentence continues:
"analyzing video streamed from cameras in heavily touristed areas, the AI algorithm determines crowd sizes without, in the interest of protecting individuals' privacy, retaining the footage."

Let me break down what this part is telling us:

• "Analyzing video streamed from cameras in heavily touristed areas"
  • This describes the process - the system analyzes video from tourist area cameras
• Then after a comma: "the AI algorithm determines crowd sizes"
  • This tells us what the algorithm does with that video
  • It figures out how many people are in the crowd
• "without...retaining the footage"
  • This is the ethical part - it doesn't keep/save the video
  • The phrase "in the interest of protecting individuals' privacy" explains why

What do we notice about the structure here?

• "Analyzing video streamed from cameras in heavily touristed areas"
  • This is an introductory phrase describing HOW the algorithm works
• "the AI algorithm determines crowd sizes without...retaining the footage"
  • This is a complete thought with a subject ("the AI algorithm") and verb ("determines")
  • It could stand alone as its own sentence
• Looking back at what comes before the blank:
  • "The city of Amsterdam partnered with consultants to develop Public Eye—an ethical AI-powered crowd-monitoring system"
  • This is ALSO a complete thought - it could stand alone as its own sentence

So we have two complete, independent thoughts here:

1. Amsterdam developed this monitoring system (complete)
2. The system analyzes video and determines crowd sizes without saving footage (complete)

These are two separate sentences that need proper separation.

The correct answer is C: system. Analyzing

This creates two properly structured sentences:

• First sentence: Describes what Amsterdam developed
• Second sentence: Describes how the system works, starting with an introductory phrase "Analyzing video..." followed by the main clause "the AI algorithm determines..."

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Recognizing When Two Complete Thoughts Need Separate Sentences

When you have two complete, independent thoughts (each with its own subject and verb that could stand alone), they need to be properly separated. Using a period to create two distinct sentences is often the clearest choice:

Pattern:

• Complete Thought 1: Subject + Verb (can stand alone)
• Complete Thought 2: Subject + Verb (can stand alone)
• Solution: Separate with a period

In this question:

• Sentence 1: "The city of Amsterdam partnered with consultants to develop Public Eye—an ethical AI-powered crowd-monitoring system."
  • Subject: The city of Amsterdam
  • Verb: partnered
  • Complete thought ✓
• Sentence 2: "Analyzing video streamed from cameras in heavily touristed areas, the AI algorithm determines crowd sizes without...retaining the footage."
  • Introductory phrase: "Analyzing video..."
  • Subject: the AI algorithm
  • Verb: determines
  • Complete thought ✓
• Result: These need to be separate sentences, so we need a period between "system" and "Analyzing"

Key insight: The comma after "areas" in the second sentence is correct punctuation for separating an introductory phrase (called a participial phrase in grammar terms) from the main clause. This comma helps us recognize that "Analyzing video..." is starting a NEW complete thought, not continuing the previous sentence.