The company's investment in renewable energy infrastructure and commitment to zero-waste manufacturing have transformed its industry reputation, _____...

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 company's investment
• in renewable energy infrastructure
• and commitment
• to zero-waste manufacturing
• have transformed its industry reputation,
• _____ both consumer trust and investor confidence.
• 
  
• Choices show: (?) = have strengthened / strengthening / that strengthened / to strengthen

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence tells us about a company that has made two important moves:

• 'The company's investment in renewable energy infrastructure'
  • The company invested money in building renewable energy systems
• 'and commitment to zero-waste manufacturing'
  • AND the company committed to manufacturing without producing waste

These two things together 'have transformed its industry reputation'

• The company's reputation in its industry has been changed significantly by these actions.

Now we reach the comma and the blank: '_____ both consumer trust and investor confidence.'

Let's look at our choices. They give us different forms of the verb "strengthen":

• have strengthened (another main verb)
• strengthening (an -ing form)
• that strengthened (a relative clause)
• to strengthen (an infinitive)

To see what works here, let's understand what this part is telling us!

The phrase 'both consumer trust and investor confidence' refers to two things that relate to the reputation transformation. The sentence is saying that as the reputation transformed, something happened to consumer trust and investor confidence – they got stronger.

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The sentence already has a complete thought:
  • Subject: 'The company's investment... and commitment'
  • Main verb: 'have transformed'
  • Object: 'its industry reputation'
• After the comma, we need something that adds descriptive information about this transformation
  • We're not starting a whole new sentence with a new main verb
  • We're adding detail about what happened as a result of or along with this transformation
• The phrase after the comma is describing an additional effect or aspect of the main action
  • Think of it as: "have transformed its reputation, [in the process] strengthening trust and confidence"

So we need strengthening – the -ing form that adds descriptive information to the main action. It tells us what else happened as the reputation was being transformed.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Present Participles to Add Descriptive Information

When you have a complete independent clause and want to add information about what happens along with or as a result of the main action, you can use a present participle (the -ing form of a verb, called a participial phrase in grammar terms) after a comma:

Pattern:

• Complete main clause: The company's actions have transformed its reputation
• + comma + present participle phrase: , strengthening both consumer trust and investor confidence

How it works:

• Main clause = the primary action: "have transformed"
• Participial phrase = additional descriptive information about what accompanies or results from that action: "strengthening"

More examples:

• The software update fixed the glitch, improving system performance by 40%
  • Main action: fixed the glitch
  • Additional info: improving performance happened as a result
• The documentary explored climate change, focusing specifically on coastal communities
  • Main action: explored climate change
  • Additional info: focusing tells us more about how the exploration happened

In this question:

• The sentence structure requires a form that can modify the main clause
• "Strengthening" (Choice B) provides that additional descriptive layer
• It tells us what else happened as the reputation was transformed, without creating a second independent clause