Which of the following sentences contains a dangling modifier?

A dangling modifier occurs when a descriptive phrase is not clearly or logically related to the word or words it modifies. In the sentence provided, "Walking through the park, the flowers were beautiful," the modifier "walking through the park" is meant to describe a person who is walking, but instead, it mistakenly modifies "the flowers." This results in confusion, as it suggests that the flowers are doing the walking, which doesn’t make sense.

In contrast, the other sentences clearly attach their modifiers to the appropriate subjects. For instance, in the second option, "After finishing the assignment, the teacher reviewed the students' work," it is clear that the teacher finished the assignment. Similarly, in the third sentence, "Having completed the test, the results were impressive," we can infer that it is the test scores that are impressive, but the structure is still misaligned. The fourth option, "To bake a cake, the oven needs to be preheated," makes clear who requires the action—baking a cake requires an oven to be preheated.

These examples demonstrate the importance of clarity in sentence structure to avoid the confusion associated with dangling modifiers.