She just analyzed the syntax tree of the sentence. Where I'm from, that's a normal school day in middle school. Of course this is a long and convoluted sentence, but the process is not more complicated, it's just longer.
What really surprises me is that nobody reported the mistake to the professor.
I think someone else in the class did:
> Michelle has asserted that the statement, as it appears in the Pace catalogue, only makes sense when an additional phrase is added.
Which linked to: http://cmuems.com/2013/a/michelle/08/29/quadrangle/