An inference question with a proposed reason tests whether you can finish the text’s reasoning. Start with the words leading into the blank, then find what the proposed reason is meant to explain. Put those clues in a few words so you can follow the cause and effect. Next, predict the smallest conclusion that links the clues without adding facts. Wrong endings often add facts or certainty that the clues don’t support.
Hints
- Hint 1
Summarize the pattern in the first sentence. What is the proposed reason trying to explain?
- Hint 2
Look for the link the blank must supply. How could exposure to specific local needs help explain the pattern you found?
Step-by-step
Follow the proposed cause
Step 1Find the pattern to explain
The opening says meeting attendees are disproportionately likely to volunteer for neighborhood improvement projects. That means volunteering is more common among attendees, not that every attendee volunteers. What must the ending help explain? One plausible reason calls for a possible cause of that pattern, so the blank needs to connect attending meetings with the greater chance of volunteering.
- Step 2
Predict the missing link
How does knowing about local needs connect to that pattern? Attending meetings exposes people to specific local needs, so attendees learn where their neighborhood needs help. The blank has to carry us from that new knowledge to their decision to help: learning where help is needed may make people more willing to give it. Predict a change in willingness, since that fills the gap between exposure and volunteering. The text offers a plausible reason, so we don’t need to claim that every attendee will react this way.
- Step 3
Test what each ending adds
Which ending gives a result of this exposure without adding facts? reduces the availability invents a loss of opportunities for non-attendees, while attendance as a prerequisite and mandate volunteer service turn learning about needs into requirements the passage never gives. The verb motivates means makes someone want to do something, so it connects knowing about a need with choosing to help. Choice D.