Question 113·Medium·Central Ideas and Details
In his 2023 book Rations at the Edge of the World, historian José Morales reconstructs the food supplies of several early-twentieth-century Antarctic expeditions. Morales began with the explorers’ personal diaries, which often mentioned meals in passing—“half a biscuit left,” one entry reads—but rarely listed exact quantities of provisions. To create a reliable inventory, Morales compared the diary notes with surviving shipping invoices and with photographs of the expeditions’ camps, in which boxes of tinned meat and sacks of flour are faintly visible.
What does the text most strongly suggest about the explorers’ personal diaries?
For SAT Reading questions that ask what a text “most strongly suggests,” first underline the key lines about the subject (here, the diaries), then ask: What problem or gap is the author hinting at? Notice especially when the author shows someone adding extra sources or steps—that usually signals the original source was incomplete for a specific purpose. Eliminate any answer choices that introduce new facts not in the passage, or that change the issue (for example, accuracy, cataloging, or technical language) when the text is really about sufficiency or completeness of information.
Hints
Locate the description of the diaries
Focus on the sentence beginning “Morales began with the explorers’ personal diaries” and the sentence immediately after it. What do these sentences say about how the diaries describe meals?
Notice what is missing from the diaries
Pay close attention to the phrase “mentioned meals in passing” and “rarely listed exact quantities of provisions.” What kind of information would a historian need for a precise food inventory that might not be present here?
Think about why Morales used other sources
Ask yourself: If the diaries were fully sufficient for Morales’s purpose, would he need to consult shipping invoices and photographs? What does his choice to compare multiple sources imply about the diaries’ limitations?
Step-by-step Explanation
Understand what the question is asking
The question asks, “What does the text most strongly suggest about the explorers’ personal diaries?” This is an inference question: you need to figure out what must be true based on the information given, even if it’s not said in exactly those words.
Find the key sentences about the diaries
Look at the part of the passage that describes the diaries:
- Morales began with the explorers’ personal diaries.
- The diaries “often mentioned meals in passing—‘half a biscuit left,’ one entry reads—but rarely listed exact quantities of provisions.”
- Then it says, “To create a reliable inventory, Morales compared the diary notes with surviving shipping invoices and with photographs of the expeditions’ camps.”
These lines tell you both what the diaries did include and what they lacked.
Infer the limitation of the diaries
If the diaries only “mentioned meals in passing” and “rarely listed exact quantities,” then they did not give a full, detailed count of all the food. That is why, to create a reliable inventory, Morales had to use additional sources: shipping invoices and photographs. This shows the diaries were useful but incomplete for his specific goal.
Match that inference to the answer choices
Now compare this idea—diaries were useful but not detailed or complete enough for a full inventory—to each option:
- One choice says the diaries had already been carefully cataloged by other historians.
- One says they exaggerated the scarcity of food.
- One says they used technical terminology.
- One says the diaries by themselves did not have enough detailed information to determine the full food inventories.
Only the last choice matches what the passage suggests about their brief, non-quantitative notes and the need for other records, so the correct answer is: “The diaries alone did not contain enough detailed information for Morales to determine the expeditions’ full food inventories.”