By 1940, the pilot Jacqueline Cochran held seventeen official national and international speed records,
and she earned them at a time when aviation was still so new for many of the planes she flew to be of dangerously experimental design.
正确答案是E. earned at a time when aviation was still so new that many of the planes shew flew were
解释说：The word
earned is close to the noun it modifies,
speed records.
speed records后面不是有逗号么，为什么earned修饰的是speed records而不是主句主语the pilot，感觉要是修饰pilot要用earning不知道对不对
比如：（来自：
http://forum.chasedream.com/GMAT_SC/thread-433722-1-1.html?SearchText）
Tom nervously watched the woman,
alarmed by her silence.
(The phrase modifies
Tom, not
woman.)
过去分词用逗号隔开，还是可以作为非限定性修饰语来修饰其之前的名词的吖！
EG. Excavators found an artifact buried under the tomb. = Excavators found an artifact, buried under the tomb.
一般V-ing分词作状语修饰 主语或者主语的动作，乃至整个前句的情况比较多，所以要想修饰就近的名词，最好还是用which或者限定性的修饰比较靠谱。
其次，earn records， 获得奖章，所以earned需要被动，就像例句中的buried一样。
-- by 会员 shirryzhan (2012/8/17 9:56:19)