Question 71·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Information and Ideas
Researchers building a database of nineteenth-century merchant ledgers have sometimes treated the number of digitized pages as a measure of the database’s breadth. Historian Nia Mercado notes, however, that surviving ledgers disproportionately come from large firms whose documents were deposited in institutions; the fragile account books of small traders were less often retained. Moreover, transcription software recognizes standardized clerks’ handwriting more reliably than idiosyncratic scripts. Although researchers may manually inspect samples for errors, most searches draw only on machine-readable text. Adding thousands of pages can reduce random noise, Mercado argues, but when those pages come from the same repositories and favor the same writing conventions, scale does not correct systematic absences. She therefore warns that despite its impressive size, the database _____
Which choice most logically completes the text?
For an inference question, identify the passage’s main constraints and determine what follows when they are considered together. Be especially cautious of choices that solve only one part of the problem, contradict an explicit statement, or extend the text’s claims into a related but unsupported topic.
Hints
Separate size from representativeness
Consider why a database containing many pages might still provide an incomplete picture of the merchants being studied.
Track both filtering stages
Identify which records are likely to enter an archive and which archived records are likely to become searchable.
Focus on systematic absences
Ask whether adding more material from sources with the same biases would include the records that were missing in the first place.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the two sources of bias
Small traders’ records were less likely to be preserved, and records written in idiosyncratic scripts were less likely to become machine-readable.
Determine whether adding pages solves the problem
The text states that adding pages reduces random noise but does not correct systematic absences when the new material comes from the same repositories and favors the same handwriting conventions.
Infer Mercado’s warning
A large database can appear comprehensive without being representative. Its findings will tend to reflect the businesses whose records survived and were easier to transcribe, which is exactly what the correct choice states.