# SAT Inferences: Completing the Text Logically | topin

SAT guidesInferences

Section

Reading and Writing, Information and Ideas domain

Count

Usually 2–3 per module, the last of Information and Ideas

Format

A passage ending in a blank, four possible completions

Typical stem

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Time

Often the slowest Reading and Writing questions: allow up to two minutes

## How it works

You read a passage that sets up facts, a study or an argument, and the final sentence is left unfinished. The right completion follows necessarily from what came before. Harder items need two steps of reasoning, such as ruling out an explanation, or study-design logic: what a result can show without a control group, or why a correlation does not prove a cause.

## Worked example

A research team wanted to know whether a new fertiliser increases tomato yields. They applied it to every plant in a greenhouse and found that the harvest was 20 percent larger than the previous year's crop from the same greenhouse. That year, however, the greenhouse had also been fitted with a new irrigation system. Therefore, \_\_\_\_\_\_ Which choice most logically completes the text?

1. Athe fertiliser is likely to increase tomato yields by about 20 percent in other greenhouses.
2. Bthe new irrigation system, rather than the fertiliser, caused the larger harvest.
3. Cthe results alone cannot show how much of the increase, if any, was due to the fertiliser.
4. Dtomato plants need both fertiliser and irrigation to produce a large harvest.
Show the answer

C

Two things changed at once, the fertiliser and the irrigation, and there was no group of plants grown without the fertiliser that year. So the study cannot separate their effects: C. A assumes the fertiliser caused the increase, which is exactly what is in doubt. B makes the opposite assumption, equally unsupported. D makes a general claim about tomatoes that the single study cannot support.

## A method for Inferences

1. 1  
### Find the claim or question being tested  
Note what the passage is trying to work out, such as whether the fertiliser works or why a pattern appears.
2. 2  
### Track every fact that bears on it  
List the evidence, especially words such as however, but and also, which usually introduce the fact that decides the answer.
3. 3  
### Predict the conclusion  
Say what must follow before reading the choices. On study passages, ask what the design can and cannot show.
4. 4  
### Choose the safest choice that still completes the logic  
The right answer is often modest, such as cannot show, suggests or may. Rule out choices that need extra assumptions.

## Traps to avoid

* A conclusion that sounds reasonable in real life but needs facts the passage does not give.
* Overreaching from one study to all cases, or from a correlation to a cause.
* Picking the opposite extreme of a tempting wrong answer, when the passage supports neither.
* Ignoring the however or but sentence, which usually changes what can be concluded.

## Inferences FAQs

Why are SAT inference questions so hard?

Several choices sound plausible, and the right one must follow necessarily from the passage. Recent tests also use more passages about study design, which need you to think about what an experiment can and cannot prove.

Is the answer to an inference question stated in the passage?

Not word for word, but it follows directly from what is stated. If a choice needs an extra fact you would have to supply yourself, it is wrong.

How long should I spend on SAT inference questions?

Up to about two minutes. Save time on quicker questions such as Boundaries and Transitions so you can afford it here.

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