Urban planner Sofia Martinez has transformed city landscapes through innovative park designs, sustainable transit systems, and _____ her international...

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

• Urban planner Sofia Martinez
  • has transformed city landscapes
    • through innovative park designs,
      • sustainable transit systems,
      • and green building initiatives [?] earning
  • her international acclaim
    • for reshaping how communities interact with public spaces.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

"Urban planner Sofia Martinez has transformed city landscapes through innovative park designs, sustainable transit systems, and..."

So Sofia Martinez is someone who has transformed city landscapes, and she did this through three specific ways:

• innovative park designs
• sustainable transit systems
• green building initiatives

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• Choice A adds "and earning"
• Choice B has no punctuation before "earning"
• Choice C has a comma before "earning"
• Choice D has a period before "Earning"

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

The sentence continues: "earning her international acclaim for reshaping how communities interact with public spaces."

Now let's understand what this is telling us:

• "Earning her international acclaim"
  • means she gained recognition and praise on a global level
• "For reshaping how communities interact with public spaces"
  • tells us WHY she earned this acclaim - because of how she changed the way communities use public spaces

So the complete picture is:

• Sofia Martinez did three things to transform cities (the designs, transit systems, and initiatives)
• As a RESULT of doing these three things, she earned international acclaim

What do we notice about the structure here?

• "Earning her international acclaim..." is NOT a fourth item in the list
  • The three items are: designs, systems, and initiatives
  • These are the ways she transformed landscapes
• Instead, "earning her international acclaim" describes what HAPPENED because of those three things
  • It's describing a consequence or result
  • It's giving us additional information about the impact of her work
• This "earning" phrase cannot stand alone as a complete sentence
  • It needs to connect to the main statement about what she did

When you have a phrase like this that adds descriptive information after a complete statement, you need a comma to separate it.

So we need Choice C: "green building initiatives, earning"

The comma signals that what follows is additional descriptive information about the result of her work, not another item in the list.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas with Result/Consequence Phrases

When you have a phrase beginning with an -ing verb form (called a participial phrase in grammar terms) that comes after a complete statement and describes a result or adds descriptive information, you should set it off with a comma:

Pattern:

• Complete main statement, -ing phrase providing additional description

Example 1:

• The team won the championship, earning their coach his fifth title
  • Main statement: "The team won the championship" (complete thought)
  • Result phrase: "earning their coach his fifth title" (describes what happened as a result)
  • The comma connects them

Example 2:

• The scientist published her findings, sparking debate across the field
  • Main statement: "The scientist published her findings" (complete thought)
  • Result phrase: "sparking debate across the field" (describes the consequence)
  • The comma connects them

In our question:

• Main statement: "Sofia Martinez has transformed city landscapes through innovative park designs, sustainable transit systems, and green building initiatives"
• Result phrase: "earning her international acclaim for reshaping how communities interact with public spaces"
• The comma correctly connects them, showing that the acclaim is a result of her transformative work

Why this matters: The comma signals to readers that what follows is descriptive information about the consequence or result, not a new independent statement or another item in a list. Without it, the sentence structure becomes unclear or incorrect.