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inference questions

The SAT doesn’t ask you to guess — it asks you to finish the author’s thought. Inference items now appear almost exclusively as:

“Which choice most logically completes the text?”

Each passage ends mid-thought. Your job: pick the sentence that perfectly continues its logic, tone, and momentum.

How To Solve Them

  1. Read the setup. What idea or emotion does the last sentence tee up?
  2. Predict the follow-up. Finish the sentence in your own words before peeking at options.
  3. Reject “off” answers. Cross out choices that shift tone, add random info, or break logic.
  4. Pick the smoothest fit. It should click in like the next puzzle piece — no friction.

mini walkthrough

Passage Excerpt

As climate change accelerates, the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet. This phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, results primarily from melting sea ice, which reduces the Earth's reflectivity. Scientists have also noted increased methane release from thawing permafrost, a potent greenhouse gas. These effects disrupt local ecosystems and influence global weather patterns. Given these wide-reaching consequences, researchers argue that understanding Arctic feedback loops is vital because _________

Question: Which of the following most logically completes the passage?

  • A) they offer insight into how early mammals migrated during past ice ages.
  • B) mitigation policies in tropical regions depend on Arctic wind patterns.
  • C) they help predict future climate shifts and prepare for related global impacts.
  • D) most of Earth's freshwater originates from Arctic glacial melt.
Show Correct Answer

Correct Answer: C) they help predict future climate shifts and prepare for related global impacts.

Explanation:The passage discusses how Arctic changes influence the rest of the world, especially weather. Only C logically follows, because it links understanding Arctic feedback to managing global consequences. Other choices either introduce irrelevant ideas (A, B) or inaccuracies (D).

Common Traps

  • Tone shift: upbeat passage ends on sudden gloom (or vice versa). Pick the answer based on that sudden change.
  • New info: choice adds facts or characters never mentioned. These types of choices are wrong almost every time.
  • Too vague / too bold: completion feels out of place or overstates the idea. There's normally one answer choice thats like this in every question.

Let's try some practice problems from the College Board Practice Bank, that aren't on the Bluebook Practice Tests.

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Easy

Alice Guy-Blaché directed hundreds of films between 1896 and 1920. She wanted audiences to feel like they were watching real people on screen. She would encourage actors in her films to behave naturally. Guy-Blaché even hung a large sign reading “Be Natural” in the studio where she made her films. At the time, films lacked sound, so actors needed to rely solely on their bodies and facial expressions to convey emotions. As a result, actors tended to highly exaggerate their actions and expressions. The style of acting in Guy-Blaché’s films was therefore ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

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Medium

In her 2021 article “Throwaway History: Towards a Historiography of Ephemera,” scholar Anne Garner discusses John Johnson (1882–1956), a devoted collector of items intended to be discarded, including bus tickets and campaign pamphlets. Johnson recognized that scholarly institutions considered his expansive collection of ephemera to be worthless—indeed, it wasn’t until 1968, after Johnson’s death, that Oxford University’s Bodleian Library acquired the collection, having grasped the items’ potential value to historians and other researchers. Hence, the example of Johnson serves to ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

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Hard

Marta Coll and colleagues’ 2010 Mediterranean Sea biodiversity census reported approximately 17,000 species, nearly double the number reported in Carlo Bianchi and Carla Morri’s 2000 census—a difference only partly attributable to the description of new invertebrate species in the interim. Another factor is that the morphological variability of microorganisms is poorly understood compared to that of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and algae, creating uncertainty about how to evaluate microorganisms as species. Researchers’ decisions on such matters therefore can be highly consequential. Indeed, the two censuses reported similar counts of vertebrate, plant, and algal species, suggesting that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

final tip

Finish the author’s sentence — same tone, same logic, zero extra baggage.

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Inference Skills Unlocked

You now know how to finish a passage’s thought with confidence.

Next Up

14: Command of Evidence

Learn how to back up every claim with proof from the text.