An inference question asks you to finish a text’s reasoning using only the clues it gives. Read the words leading into the blank, then put each clue in a few words. When records and personal accounts seem to differ, ask what each can actually show. Predict the smallest conclusion that fits both, and check every part of each choice against the evidence. Reject an answer if it needs a fact the passage never gives.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with the architectural records. Track what happens after each tax increase, including whether the timing repeats.
- Hint 2
Look for what the diaries directly report. What do they say about the writers’ design choices?
- Hint 3
Ask what each source can show. Is the pattern in the building records the same kind of evidence as the words people used in their diaries?
Step-by-step
Join the records and the diaries
Step 1Read the repeated pattern
The records say that immediately after each tax increase, new houses averaged 20 percent fewer windows, and builders used smaller panes. What does that timing suggest? The tax likely affected house design, because the pattern followed each increase. But Taken together means the blank needs a conclusion that also accounts for the diaries.
- Step 2
Work out what the diaries can show
The diaries rarely mention the tax and describe designs as matters of "practicalities" or "fashion." What can those descriptions show? They show how people wrote about their designs, which isn't the same as showing everything that affected them. A cause can matter without being named. Our small prediction is that the tax played a part in design, even though the writers described their choices in other terms.
- Step 3
Test the added claims
Which endings go past the text, adding facts we haven't been given? The ending likely unrelated to the tax needs evidence separating the smaller-pane change from the tax. An ending that says less influential says which cause mattered more, but neither source measures that. The phrase portray tax-avoidance measures assumes writers knew they were avoiding tax and described that as something else, but the diaries don't tell us that.
- Step 4
Choose the limited conclusion
The phrase did not explicitly acknowledge it describes what the builders didn't say, not what they privately knew. It makes no claim that they hid the tax's role, so influenced architectural choices can link the design changes to the tax without adding a reason for the diary wording. Choice C.