An inference question about a change tests whether you can explain a result using the text’s clues. Read what the question asks you to infer, then find the lines about the change and its result. Check what changed and what stayed the same, because those details help you predict why the result happened. Go one step past the lines: say what the clues make likely, without adding facts the passage never gives.
Hints
- Hint 1
In the sentence beginning “After the switch,” find which items had the largest sales increase.
- Hint 2
Check what changed and what stayed the same in that sentence. What can you infer by linking those details to the sales pattern?
Step-by-step
Link the change to the sales
Step 1Find the sales pattern
After the switch, sales increased most for the items whose pictures appeared more frequently in the rotation. Which two things are linked? The items shown more often had the biggest sales gains, so how often pictures appeared and increased sales are linked. That’s the link we’ll use to infer something about customers’ ordering decisions.
- Step 2
Use what stayed the same
The last clause says the recipes, prices, and order in which the items were listed stayed the same. Could changes in the food or its cost explain the sales gains? Those details didn’t change, so we can’t explain the gains by inventing changes to them. We can predict that how items were shown affected what customers ordered.
- Step 3
Check how much the choice claims
How strong a claim can most reasonably be inferred from that link? Influenced means affected, not completely controlled. The choice with influenced connects how often an image appears to ordering decisions while leaving room for other reasons customers might order. Choice B.