For inference questions asking what the information most strongly suggests, list the key facts and especially any constraints (what the passage rules out). Then find any detail that provides a concrete mechanism connecting the facts. Eliminate options that (1) contradict stated information, or (2) require adding new assumptions (like deception or unmentioned events). Choose the option most directly grounded in a stated detail rather than one relying on coincidence.
Hints
- Hint 1
Track what the passage rules out
Note what explanations the passage makes less likely: significant migration and the poets directly studying the dialect.
- Hint 2
Look for any provided bridge between mountain and coast
Find the detail that could connect the isolated dialect to people far away without migration or direct study.
- Hint 3
Prefer the option that uses a stated fact (not a guess)
If one answer is supported by a specific detail in the passage, it will usually be stronger than an answer that relies on coincidence or assumes someone is lying.
Step-by-step
- Step 1
Identify the key facts and constraints
The passage tells you that:
- A rare grammatical structure exists in an isolated mountain dialect.
- The same structure appears in poems from coastal towns far away.
- There are no historical records of significant mountain-to-coast migration in the past two centuries.
- The poets say they have never studied the dialect.
- A widely read anthology of mountain folktales (collected from the mountain dialect) has been used in coastal literature courses for decades.
- Step 2
Determine what kind of explanation fits all facts
Since the text supplies reasons to doubt direct transmission (large migration; the poets studying the dialect), the best inference should explain how the poets could still plausibly encounter the structure.
The anthology provides a concrete pathway: coastal poets could be exposed to language influenced by the mountain dialect without ever studying the dialect itself or relying on undocumented mass migration.
- Step 3
Eliminate choices that contradict or add unsupported claims
- An answer claiming large recent migration conflicts with the statement about no historical records of significant migration.
- An answer claiming the poets hid their fluency requires assuming deception and motive that the passage never supports.
- An answer claiming independent emergence ignores the passage’s introduced mechanism (the widely read anthology) that offers a more directly supported explanation than coincidence.
- Step 4
Select the choice most strongly supported
Because the anthology is a documented, widely used source derived from the mountain dialect, the best-supported inference is that the poets encountered the grammatical structure through sources that had themselves been influenced by the mountain dialect.