Inferences questions give you a short passage that ends with a blank, followed by the prompt “Which choice most logically completes the text?” Your job is to choose the statement that follows most logically from the information the passage provides. The correct answer is never new information from outside the text; it is a conclusion that the passage’s own details make reasonable—often the missing result, cause, or implication that the earlier sentences point toward.
Pay close attention to the words just before the blank, such as therefore, thus, hence, or suggests that, which signal that what follows must be supported by the evidence already given. A right answer can always be traced back to specific statements in the passage and does not overreach. Wrong choices typically go beyond what the text supports, reverse a relationship the text describes, raise a comparison or topic the passage never mentions, or state something that may be true in the world but is not backed by this particular text.
Example 1
A museum that displayed a collection of ancient masks announced that it would return them to the community that had originally created them. Some observers assumed the museum had been pressured into the decision by threats of legal action. The museum’s own records, however, tell a different story: for several years its curators had been quietly studying the masks’ origins and corresponding warmly with the community’s leaders, and no lawsuit was ever filed or threatened. The return followed this long, friendly exchange. The museum’s records therefore suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A
the community had long ago abandoned its claim to the masks.
B
the museum returned the masks by its own choice rather than under legal pressure.
C
the masks were of little historical value to the museum.
D
other museums were certain to return similar collections soon.
Choice B is the best answer. The records show years of friendly study and correspondence with the community’s leaders and confirm that no lawsuit was filed or threatened, so the return came by the museum’s own choice rather than under pressure. Choice A is incorrect because the community’s leaders were in warm contact with the museum, which points to an active claim, not an abandoned one. Choice C is incorrect because the text never suggests the masks lacked historical value; the curators studied them closely for years. Choice D is incorrect because the text discusses only this museum and says nothing about what other museums would do.
Example 2
A gardener noticed that tomato plants growing beside basil plants suffered less damage from insects than tomato plants grown alone. Curious, she ran a careful test, raising one group of tomatoes near basil and another group by itself, with everything else kept the same. Over the season, the tomatoes near basil were visited by far fewer harmful insects. Chemists have since found that basil releases scent compounds into the air that many insects avoid. Taken together, these observations suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A
the scent released by basil may help protect nearby tomato plants from insects.
B
tomato plants grow faster when they are planted far from basil.
C
basil plants are more attractive to gardeners than tomato plants are.
D
insects are unable to survive in gardens that contain basil.
Choice A is the best answer. The tomatoes near basil drew far fewer harmful insects, and basil is shown to release a scent that many insects avoid, so the scent may help protect nearby tomatoes. Choice B is incorrect because the text discusses insect damage, not how fast the tomato plants grow. Choice C is incorrect because the text compares insect visits, not gardeners’ preferences between the two plants. Choice D is incorrect because the text says the basil-adjacent tomatoes had fewer, not zero, insects, so insects still survive where basil grows.
Tips for solving
The blank always calls for a conclusion that follows from the passage; the correct answer restates or combines information already given and never adds outside facts.
Example: A passage notes that deep-sea vent shrimp lack eyes, but possess specialized dorsal organs capable of detecting faint infrared light emitted by thermal vents. The text concludes that these organs likely allow the shrimp to ____
Incorrect Choice: navigate toward colder ocean currents to avoid predatory fish. (Adds outside facts about cold currents and predators).
Correct Choice: detect the heat radiation given off by the hydrothermal vents. (Combines the stated facts about infrared light detection and thermal vents).
Read the whole passage and predict how it should end before looking at the choices—a prediction guards you against plausible-sounding traps.
Example: A text explains that a certain soil bacteria breaks down synthetic plastics faster at 35°C than at 20°C, but completely stops functioning when temperatures exceed 40°C. Researchers planning a large-scale plastic recycling facility would therefore most likely ____
Your Prediction: "Maintain facility temperatures between 35°C and 40°C for maximum breakdown."
Matching Choice: keep processing tanks within a specific elevated temperature window below 40°C.
Watch the transition just before the blank (therefore, thus, hence, suggests that); it signals that the answer must be a logical result of what came before.
Example: A passage states that plant Species A produces thick seeds that require fire to crack open, whereas plant Species B produces thin seeds that germinate immediately upon touching damp soil. In an ecosystem experiencing prolonged wildfire suppression, researchers observed that Species B became dominant. This finding suggests that ____
Incorrect Choice: Species A will adapt by producing thinner seed coats over time. (Not a direct logical result of the observed population change).
Correct Choice: the absence of periodic fires limits the ability of Species A to germinate successfully. (Direct logical result signaled by "suggests that").
Eliminate choices that go beyond the text, that introduce a comparison or topic the passage never raises, or that require information the passage does not provide.
Example: A text discusses how solar panel efficiency drops by 10% in high-humidity environments compared to dry environments.
Incorrect Trap Choice: Solar energy is significantly less cost-effective than wind energy in coastal regions. (Introduces an unmentioned comparison to wind energy and cost-effectiveness).
Correct Choice: Solar panels installed in arid regions will operate closer to their maximum efficiency than those in humid regions. (Stays strictly within the scope provided by the text).
Watch for reversals—choices that state the opposite of what the text supports—and for choices that are true in the real world but unsupported by this particular passage.
Example: A text reports that introduced trout in a mountain lake ate large quantities of native tadpoles, leading to a drastic drop in the lake's frog population.
Reversal Trap Choice: The arrival of trout caused an increase in the survival rate of native tadpoles. (States the exact opposite of the text).
Real-World Fact Trap Choice: Trout are a popular game fish that boost local tourism and economy. (True in real life, but completely unsupported by the passage).
Correct Choice: The presence of the introduced trout negatively impacted the native frog population.
Be cautious of extreme words (all, none, only, always, never) unless the passage clearly justifies them; sound inferences are usually measured.
Example: A study finds that three specific bird species in a forest altered their nesting heights following the introduction of a ground predator.
Extreme Trap Choice: All forest birds will always change their nesting behavior when ground predators arrive. (Uses extreme words "all" and "always" unsupported by a study of just three species).
Correct Choice: Some avian species may adjust their habitat use in response to the presence of ground predators. (Uses measured language like "some" and "may").
If two choices seem possible, choose the one that follows more directly and completely from the specific evidence in the text, not the one that merely sounds reasonable.
Practice questions
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Question 1 · easy
The octopus is a master of disguise, able to change the color of its skin in less than a second to blend into the rocks and sand around it. This talent presents a puzzle, because tests of the octopus’s eyes show that the animal is colorblind and cannot tell one color from another. Recently, however, biologists discovered that the same light-sensitive proteins found in an octopus’s eyes are also present in its skin. Because these proteins respond to light, the skin itself may gather information about the colors nearby. The discovery of these proteins in the skin therefore suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 2 · easy
Emperor penguins endure the Antarctic winter, one of the coldest environments on Earth. To survive, hundreds of the birds gather tightly together in a huddle, pressing their bodies close to share warmth. Researchers studying these huddles noticed that the penguins do not stay in fixed positions. Instead, the birds on the freezing outer edge slowly shuffle toward the sheltered center, while those already in the warm center gradually move outward and take a turn facing the wind. Over time, every penguin spends part of the period in the coldest spot. This constant movement within the huddle most strongly suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 3 · easy
Before the middle of the nineteenth century, each town in Britain kept its own local time, set by the position of the sun overhead. A clock in one city might read several minutes behind a clock in another only a short distance away. This caused little trouble in an age when travel was slow and few people journeyed far beyond their own town. But when railways began to connect distant towns, the many local times became a serious problem: a single train might pass through a dozen towns, each with a different clock, making printed schedules almost impossible to follow. The confusion faced by the early railways therefore suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 4 · easy
The thorny devil, a small lizard that lives in the deserts of Australia, faces the challenge of finding water in a place where rain rarely falls and open pools almost never form. The lizard’s skin is covered with narrow grooves that run between its scales and lead toward its mouth. When the animal stands on damp sand in the early morning, moisture is drawn up along these grooves by the same force that pulls water into a narrow tube. In this way the lizard can drink without a pool of water in sight. The structure of the thorny devil’s skin therefore suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 5 · easy
Deep inside certain prehistoric caves in France and Spain, ancient people painted images of animals on the walls. Researchers have long wondered why particular spots were chosen for the paintings, since the caves contain many blank surfaces that were never used. Recently, a team of scientists carefully measured how sound travels through several of these narrow, winding caves. They found that the painted areas tend to be clustered in spots where the walls produce strong, ringing echoes, while the many unpainted areas nearby are usually acoustically dull and silent. The close match between the painted spots and the echoing spots most strongly suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 6 · easy
A growing number of public libraries have begun lending items other than books, such as tools, cooking equipment, and musical instruments. Supporters of these programs point out that many households own expensive items they use only once or twice a year, like a power drill or a sewing machine, which then sit unused in a closet for months. By allowing people to borrow such items whenever they are needed and then return them afterward for others to use, a library lets a single expensive tool serve many different families instead of just one. The reasoning behind these lending programs therefore suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 7 · easy
Each year, a tree adds a new layer of growth just beneath its bark, forming a ring that can be seen when the trunk is cut across. In years with plenty of rain and warmth, a tree grows quickly and produces a wide ring; in cold or dry years, growth slows and the ring is narrow. Because a single old tree may hold hundreds of such rings, scientists can examine a cut trunk and read in it a record of the weather stretching back centuries, long before any measurements were ever written down. The pattern of wide and narrow rings therefore suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 8 · easy
As a boy in early nineteenth-century France, Louis Braille attended a school for blind students where books were printed with large raised letters that readers traced with their fingers. These books were enormous, expensive, and painfully slow to read, and the school owned only a handful of them. Braille, dissatisfied, spent years developing a new system in which each letter was represented by a small pattern of raised dots that a fingertip could take in all at once. Readers using his system could move far more quickly across a page. The advantages of Braille’s system of dots therefore suggest that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 9 · easy
Along the rocky Pacific coast, dense forests of tall kelp grow beneath the surface of the water and shelter many kinds of fish, crabs, and other sea life. These kelp forests are threatened by sea urchins, which feed on kelp and can strip a whole forest bare. Sea otters, in turn, feed on these sea urchins in very large numbers, cracking them open as they float at the surface. Where otters are plentiful, the urchin population stays small and the kelp forests remain thick and healthy; where otters have vanished, urchins multiply and the kelp soon disappears. The relationship among otters, urchins, and kelp therefore suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
Question 10 · easy
Many of Charles Dickens’s novels first reached readers not as complete books but as a series of short installments published one small part at a time in inexpensive magazines over the course of many months. Because readers had to wait for each new part to appear, Dickens often ended an installment at a moment of high suspense, leaving a character in danger or a mystery unsolved. Readers, eager to learn what happened next to the characters they had come to love, would rush out to buy the following installment as soon as it appeared in print. The way Dickens structured his installments therefore suggests that ______
