A logical completion question tests whether you can finish a text’s reasoning using its clues. Read the words leading into the blank to see whose conclusion or belief you’re judging. Then put the claim and any evidence that challenges it into a few words, and predict a conclusion that stays within what they show. Keep each person’s view separate, because the writer may describe someone else’s claim without agreeing with it. Wrong choices often add beliefs the text never gives.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the unfinished sentence and identify whose thinking it asks you to judge. Then find the claim those people accept.
- Hint 2
Read the sentences on both sides of “Yet” for which reason is ranked first. The words chiefly and primary help you compare them.
- Hint 3
How does the survey affect the support for Patel’s claim? Use that relationship to finish the sentence about the commentators.
Step-by-step
Compare the claim with its evidence
Step 1Identify what the commentators accept
Patel says garden growth is driven chiefly by residents’ desire for stronger social ties. What does chiefly mean? Social ties come first, ahead of lower food costs. The unfinished sentence is about commentators who uncritically accept her claim about social motives, so we’re judging whether they should accept that ranking.
- Step 2
Join the conflicting clues
Does Patel’s survey support that ranking? In her own nationwide survey, a clear majority of respondents list “reducing household food costs” as their primary reason for participating. Primary means main, so the survey gives food costs the position her claim gives social ties. The survey points in a different direction from her claim. If commentators accept her claim without question, they fail to account for that conflict.
- Step 3
Test what the other endings add
Now test the endings against the view the commentators accept. Less reliable than observational data adds behavior data and a claim about how reliable it is that the passage never gives. Social and economic motives can coexist asks whether both can be present, but naming one as chief doesn't show that commentators deny the other. Social interaction as a beneficial but secondary outcome makes social ties secondary even though the commentators accept them as chief.
- Step 4
Match a cautious conclusion
How broad should the conclusion be? The phrase for many gardeners fits a clear majority of respondents, while may be leaves room for uncertainty about what drives garden growth. That wording suggests food costs may come first, and overlook evidence describes the commentators’ failure to address Patel’s conflicting survey. Choice D.