A words in context question with a concluding blank tests whether you can follow the passage’s reasoning. Read the whole text and find the clue that controls the conclusion. Ask what the text shows and what still needs to be checked, because a conclusion can’t be stronger than its evidence. Predict the missing meaning in plain words, then test each phrase against the clue. Wrong choices can echo the passage’s topic while changing how much the text actually supports.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the two examples in the second sentence. Ask what each notebook mark could mean.
- Hint 2
In the sentence about the author's judgment, look for the condition that must hold for its claim to follow.
- Hint 3
What can related drafts show that the notebook alone can't? Use that limit to predict the blank in plain words.
Step-by-step
Follow the condition to the conclusion
Step 1Read the two writing habits
A crossed-out sentence may instead have been copied into a clean draft, while an uncanceled sentence may have been abandoned. What do those examples tell us about the signal the concluding blank describes? Crossing out doesn't always mean rejection, and leaving a sentence uncanceled doesn't always mean acceptance, so the marks have more than one possible meaning.
- Step 2
Check what the negative slant needs
Does that make the notebook evidence more negative overall? The passage allows that conclusion but only if transfer cancellations outnumber unmarked abandonments. A transfer cancellation can make a sentence copied into a clean draft look rejected, while an unmarked abandonment can make a discarded sentence look kept. Those errors pull in opposite directions, so the balance between them decides whether there's a negative slant.
- Step 3
Predict from the missing evidence
The needed balance is something related drafts, but not the notebook alone, can establish. What happens without those comparisons? We can't read the signal reliably from the notebook, so predict needs other evidence to be understood. Internally contradictory means containing conflicting parts, and chronologically precise means exact about timing, but the missing evidence is about what the marks mean.
- Step 4
Match the phrase to what remains unknown
Which phrase describes the apparent signal without claiming more than we know? Directionally biased means slanted in one direction, so it would turn a possible negative slant into a proven one. Context-dependent means its meaning depends on surrounding evidence, which fits a signal that needs the related drafts for a reliable reading. Choice B.