An inference question with a result blank tests what likely follows from a change in the text. Read the words leading into the blank, then find what changed and why. Put the problem and the response in a few words so you can trace cause and effect. Predict the smallest likely result, using only those clues. Wrong choices often claim something that sounds possible but doesn’t follow from what the text gives you.
Hints
- Hint 1
The ending points to the effect of the agency’s last change. Find what the agency did in response to the crowding.
- Hint 2
Why did some students remain at stops even though the buses stopped at each school? Connect that reason to what two extra buses change.
Step-by-step
Trace the problem and the response
Step 1Read the problem and the lead-in
The buses reached capacity, leaving students waiting at stops, which means they were full before every waiting student could get on. What does the blank ask us to work out? The words As a result call for a likely effect of the agency’s response, so we’ll look at how the agency tried to solve that problem.
- Step 2
Connect the extra buses to the crowding
What did the agency’s response change? It added two extra buses to the line during the afternoon rush, which creates more room to carry students during the busy afternoon rush. A student who couldn’t fit on one full bus now has extra buses that can take them, and those buses run during the same afternoon period when crowding had been a problem. Let’s predict only what this change supports: with more space available at that busy time, fewer students are likely to be left at stops because a bus is full.
- Step 3
Test the endings against the predicted effect
The phrase needed fewer drivers adds a claim about drivers that the passage never makes, while arrive less frequently doesn’t follow from adding buses. Rerouted the line also goes past the text, since the agency added two extra buses rather than changing where the line went. Which ending gives the predicted effect without promising that every student can board? The ending reduced the number of students left waiting says fewer students were left behind, not that waiting disappeared. Choice C.