For a hard inference question, combine all relevant evidence and distinguish what is possible from what is most strongly supported. Give preference to the choice that explains the timing, physical evidence, and business records together without adding unnecessary transfers, coincidences, or claims of certainty.
Hints
- Hint 1
Separate the business roles
Consider whether different publisher names necessarily indicate different physical printing locations.
- Hint 2
Weigh the chip evidence
Use the passage's stated assumption about where a reusable woodblock generally remained.
- Hint 3
Account for the uncertainty
The ledger and inventory do not prove exactly what happened. Look for the possibility that explains all the evidence while requiring the fewest additional events.
Step-by-step
- Step 1
Distinguish publishers from printers
The publishers named on the pamphlets did not own presses, so their different names do not establish that different shops physically printed the pamphlets.
- Step 2
Connect the physical evidence
The same distinctive chip appears in both pamphlets, and the method described in the passage assumes that a reusable block generally remained in one shop. The pamphlets' publication only days apart therefore favors an explanation involving one shop rather than rapid movement between shops.
- Step 3
Evaluate the records carefully
Payments to Ward do not prove that he personally printed either pamphlet because the entries do not identify the jobs and Ward sometimes subcontracted work. However, the matching block in Ward's later inventory adds support to the possibility that one uncredited shop retained and used the block for both pamphlets.
- Step 4
Choose the best-supported possibility
The evidence does not conclusively establish the block's location at the time of printing, but the single-shop explanation accounts for the matching damage, timing, omitted printer names, and later inventory with the fewest unsupported assumptions.