An inference question with two explanations tests how much a clue can tell you. Read the words leading into the blank, then put each explanation in a few words. Ask, can the clue tell the explanations apart? If both explanations could produce the clue, the clue alone can’t tell you which is right. Predict the smallest conclusion the text supports, because a possible explanation isn’t the same as a proven one.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the two reasons people used bells in the passage. What does each reason suggest about the traveler’s bell?
- Hint 2
Compare what the two explanations would lead you to expect. Would seeing a bell help you tell them apart?
Step-by-step
Test what the bell can prove
Step 1Find what the bell is meant to show
The viewers call the traveler a crier because town criers in many European cities used bells to attract attention. What does the unfinished sentence ask us to judge? Its opening, The bell on the staff, therefore,, points to what the bell can tell us about the traveler, so we need to test that clue.
- Step 2
Put both explanations together
Liao adds that pilgrims often attached bells to their staffs. How does that change the viewers’ claim? Pilgrims used the bells to warn animals and signal their approach, so the same feature could appear on a pilgrim’s staff or a crier’s. The bell fits both explanations. We can say the traveler’s role is uncertain because the passage gives no further clue that separates these two uses of bells.
- Step 3
Test the claims against the clues
Which claims go beyond the clues? Either a merchant or a crier adds merchants without evidence and leaves out pilgrims, while unlikely that the figure is a pilgrim goes against what Liao says. Bells were forbidden conflicts with criers who used bells to attract attention in cities. Each makes a claim the bell can’t support.
- Step 4
Read the limit in the answer
The phrase does not by itself establish means the bell isn’t enough evidence on its own. It leaves a crier possible without treating the bell as proof, so the sentence says what the bell can’t prove rather than deciding the traveler’s role. Choice D.