The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses an extraordinary collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Among the most significant pieces are the...

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 Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • houses an extraordinary collection
    • of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

• Among the most significant pieces
  • are the temple fragments
    • (?) by archaeologist Herbert Winlock
      • during his 1920s expeditions to Deir el-Bahari,
    • which provided crucial insights
      • into Middle Kingdom religious practices.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start from the beginning:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses an extraordinary collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

• This is straightforward – the museum has a collection of Egyptian pieces.

Now the second sentence tells us about some particularly important items:

Among the most significant pieces are the temple fragments...

• We're zooming in on specific objects – temple fragments that are among the most important items in the collection.

This is where we have the blank:

• 'the temple fragments _____ by archaeologist Herbert Winlock'

Let's look at the choices:

• recover (base form)
• to recover (infinitive)
• recovered (past participle)
• recovers (present tense form)

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

The complete phrase is:

• 'the temple fragments _____ by archaeologist Herbert Winlock during his 1920s expeditions to Deir el-Bahari, which provided crucial insights into Middle Kingdom religious practices.'

Now let's understand what this is telling us:

• 'by archaeologist Herbert Winlock during his 1920s expeditions'
  • This tells us WHO got these fragments and WHEN – Winlock, during expeditions in the 1920s
  • The word "by" here signals that Winlock is the person who did the action – he's the one who brought back these fragments

• 'which provided crucial insights into Middle Kingdom religious practices'
  • This tells us why these fragments matter – they taught us important things about ancient Egyptian religion

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The main action of the sentence is "are" – 'Among the most significant pieces ARE the temple fragments'
• The blank comes in a phrase that's DESCRIBING the fragments – it's telling us which specific fragments we're talking about
  • Think of it like: "the fragments [that were] _____ by Winlock"
• When we see "by [person who did the action]," we need a form that shows something was done TO the fragments BY Winlock
  • The fragments didn't recover themselves
  • Winlock recovered them – they were recovered by him

So we need recovered – the past participle that acts like a describing word.

• "The temple fragments recovered by Winlock"
• = "The temple fragments that were recovered by Winlock"

The correct answer is C. recovered.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Past Participles as Describing Words

Past participles (the form of a verb typically used with "has" or "was/were") can act like adjectives to describe nouns. This is especially common when we're describing something that had an action done TO it BY someone:

Pattern:

• Long version: noun + that/which + was/were + past participle + by [who did it]
• Shortened version: noun + past participle + by [who did it]

Examples:

1. Full form: "The painting that was created by Picasso is valuable."
   • Shortened: "The painting created by Picasso is valuable."
   • "created" is the past participle describing which painting
2. Full form: "The laws that were passed by Congress take effect tomorrow."
   • Shortened: "The laws passed by Congress take effect tomorrow."
   • "passed" is the past participle describing which laws
3. In our question: "The temple fragments that were recovered by archaeologist Herbert Winlock"
   • Shortened: "The temple fragments recovered by archaeologist Herbert Winlock"
   • "recovered" is the past participle describing which fragments

Why this works:

• The past participle (called a participle in grammar terms) combines with "by [person]" to show passive voice – the fragments had something done TO them
• It functions as a modifier, not as the main verb of the sentence
• The main verb is "are" ('Among the most significant pieces are the temple fragments')