An inference question asks you to finish the text’s reasoning using only the clues it gives. Read the words leading into the blank, then put the original claim and the new evidence in a few words. Ask what each clue can actually show, including what the surviving records leave unknown. Then predict the smallest conclusion that uses every clue. An answer goes past the text if it fills those gaps with a story the records don't support.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with the reason scholars linked the reviews to Bell. Which words in the first sentence show why they linked the reviews to Bell?
- Hint 2
Compare the authors' drafts with the printer's proofs. What does the handwriting let you trace in the signed pieces?
- Hint 3
What survives for the unsigned reviews, and what comparison would you need to trace the phrases in those reviews?
Step-by-step
Trace the phrases, then limit the claim
Step 1Find the reason scholars named Bell
Scholars linked the reviews to Bell because several rare turns of phrase also appeared in her signed essays. What must the blank settle about this claim? Since it follows Taken together, this evidence suggests that, we need a conclusion about how well those shared phrases support the claim that Bell wrote the reviews after the new findings.
- Step 2
Trace the words in the signed pieces
Who put those phrases into the signed pieces? They were absent from the author's draft but added in the magazine editor's handwriting at the proof stage. A published essay can carry both the writer's words and later changes, so a phrase in print doesn't have to come from the named author. The editor supplied the phrases in every case examined, including Bell's.
- Step 3
Predict only what the records support
Only printed copies of the unsigned reviews survive. Can we trace their phrases to a writer or editor? Without drafts or proofs, we can't see who supplied the wording in those reviews. Don't claim more than we know: the match is less useful for showing that Bell wrote the reviews, because the editor's changes could explain it too. That doesn't prove the editor added the phrases to these reviews or tell us who wrote them.
- Step 4
Test what each ending claims
Bell likely wrote the reviews still relies on phrases that also appear in Bell's signed essays, despite the uncertainty about who added them. The several magazine contributors ending invents a number of writers, while learned the shared phrases from Bell's essays invents where the editor got the phrases. The substantially weaker evidence ending reduces support for Bell without naming a different writer. Choice A.