Answer: Running.  Here running is used as a gerund, a verb form that serves as a noun. You’re looking for a thing - a way to stay in shape - and of the options “running” is the only gerund that can perform the role of a noun.

Answer: “painting”   Here you’re looking for a noun that can pair with “sculpture” as a hobby for someone who likes art. “Painting” is a gerund, a verb form used as a noun (other -ing gerunds that make good hobbies are swimming, running, dancing, eating…), and fits perfectly: painting is a hobby.  “Using paint” could also be considered a gerund but note that the structure “using paint and sculpture” seems to suggest that she’s using both paint and sculpture, when really the hobby is creating sculpture. So that is incorrect. The same goes for “to paint and sculpture” making it sound like “to sculpture” is the hobby. Finally “paint” is a noun, but it’s not a hobby - it’s something you might use while pursuing your hobby.

Here you’re looking for a noun that can pair with “sculpture” as a hobby for someone who likes art. “Painting” is a gerund, a verb form used as a noun (other -ing gerunds that make good hobbies are swimming, running, dancing, eating…), and fits perfectly: painting is a hobby.  “Using paint” could also be considered a gerund but note that the structure “using paint and sculpture” seems to suggest that she’s using both paint and sculpture, when really the hobby is creating sculpture.  So that is incorrect.  The same goes for “to paint and sculpture” making it sound like “to sculpture” is the hobby. Finally “paint” is a noun, but it’s not a hobby - it’s something you might use while pursuing your hobby.

The word “frightened” is a verb used as an adjective in this case, describing that Joshua was frightened by the scary movie. Because the phrase beginning with “frightened” appears next to a comma and then a complete thought (“Joshua hid behind the couch” could be its own sentence) you must use “frightened” as a modifier here, meaning that it should not get its own subject (e.g. “he was frightened”).  You cannot connect two complete clauses with merely a comma (you need to have a coordinating conjunction like “and” or “but” after the comma to connect two clauses), so here you must simply have a verb used as an adjective, and “frightened” is the correct answer.

Here the word “was” is used as a past-tense verb and “startled” is used as a description (a participle is a verb used to describe).  Note that, when used as an active verb, “startled” requires a predicate: Joanna could have startled someone else or a dog, but you can’t say that she just “startled” without an object. The same goes for “startles” or “is startling” - neither has a recipient of the phrase “Joanna startles _____” so neither can be correct.  And “she became startled” is a redundant phrase since the word “Joanna” immediately precedes the blank, so you don’t need “she” as a subject - you already have the subject “Joanna.”

This sentence employs two -ing verbs as participial modifiers, a verb form used to describe.  Notice that the sentence could end where the comma is: “Laura spent most of last summer at Lake Geneva” would be a perfectly grammatical and informative sentence. After the comma, “swimming...and enjoying” tells us more about how she spent that summer at the lake - it adds extra description and therefore fits a common type of verbal, an -ing participial modifier following a comma at the end of a complete clause.  With the other answer choices, if you were to select NO CHANGE the verbs “swimming” and “she enjoyed” are not in the same tense even though they took place during the same time frame, and that is a mistake. The same mismatched tense mistake is inherent in the other wrong choices, and also note that the answer beginning with “she swam” leads the after-comma portion with a noun + verb - an independent clause - which cannot be separated by merely a comma (it requires a coordinating conjunction such as “and” or “so” to follow the comma).

Answer: Annoyed.  The word “annoyed” here is used as a participle, a verb used as an adjective. Often the -ed form of a verb - looking like past tense - is used in a modifying phrase to begin a sentence; look for a phrase beginning with -ed, then a comma, then a person’s name and you’ll generally have that structure of a description of a person, then that person as the subject of the sentence.

Annoying could also be used as a participle, but it doesn’t fit in this instance because it doesn’t describe the subject, Melissa - she’s not the one annoying someone, she’s the one who has become annoyed by Pankaj.

Cooking here is used as a gerund, a verb form used as a noun.  Note that Will’s other hobbies - photography and travel - are each nouns, so to have a parallel and consistent list of items we need the blank to be a noun, also.  The -ing form of verbs (cooking, sailing, swimming, hiking) can be used as a gerund, and you will often find it used for actions in lists of hobbies or activities.

The first blank should use the word “inspired” as a participle, a verb used to describe. Note that the portion before the comma does not have a subject doing the verb “inspire” so it is there to modify the noun immediately after the comma, Ally.  Note, too, the word “by” that follows the blank.  You can certainly be inspired by something, but to say that you are “inspiring by” means that you’re the subject, and clearly here Ally is the one being inspired.

The second blank uses “baking” as a gerund, a verb used as a noun.  Ally has become enamored with a new thing, and that thing is baking.

Here the first verb “became” needs to be an active verb so that this is a properly constructed sentence. The main clause of the sentence is “the oak became Jessica’s friend” (the phrase “while to some it was simply a tree” is a dependent clause that does have a subject and verb, but due to the word “while” it cannot stand alone as a sentence).

Later in the sentence, “providing” and “acting” are participles, verbs used to describe. The -ing form of a verb is very commonly used at the ends of complete clauses following a comma to tell us more about the action. Here these participles tell us how the tree acted as a friend to Jessica: it provided shade and acted as a variety of playground equipment.  

Note that two answer choices mix the verb tenses past the comma: “providing and acted” and “provided and acting.”  While you could have a list of three past tense verbs (the oak became, provided, and acted) as a list of things the oak did, you cannot mix and match verbs in a list.  Since each of those sentences has at least one -ing verb and one -ed verb, you’re not dealing with a list of three verbs, so you know that the -ing verbs are being set up as participles.