Question 4·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Craft and Structure
Debates about reconstructing a historical exhibition often assume that surviving evidence either dictates the display or leaves the curator wholly free. Dated inventories complicate that binary: they can disqualify certain sequences, but they offer no basis for preferring one of the remaining sequences over another. In this way, the records _____ curatorial discretion.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
For a words-in-context question, determine not only the general effect described but also its exact scope and degree. Compare close choices by asking whether the evidence limits possibilities, favors one possibility, broadly influences a decision, or replaces the decision-maker's judgment.
Hints
Track what the records exclude
Consider how disqualifying certain sequences changes the set of arrangements available to the curator.
Distinguish restriction from direction
The records remove possibilities, but they do not favor any one of the possibilities that remain.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the distinction
The records neither dictate the display nor leave the curator entirely unrestricted. They exclude some arrangements while permitting multiple others.
Determine the required meaning
The missing word must mean that the records narrow the curator's available choices without pointing the curator toward one particular remaining choice.
Select the most precise word
Constrain means to restrict or limit. It precisely describes the records' effect on the range of permissible arrangements.