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Identify the evidence for each answer and the specific flaw in its nearest competitor. Complete the six written drills in the lesson before this practice set. Question numbers follow the shuffled order; Guide question labels match the lesson references.
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The drill
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Question 7
Guide question 3.07
Transfer
TEXT 1
A food cooperative shortened the distance between its delivery stops by assigning nearby households to the same route. Its coordinator argues that the revised routes made deliveries more efficient because drivers covered fewer kilometers while serving the same number of households.
TEXT 2
A volunteer agrees that the revised routes reduced travel distance. She notes, however, that several households now receive food at times when residents are unavailable. She recommends considering whether delivery schedules fit residents' needs when evaluating the revised arrangement.
Which choice best describes how Text 2 relates to Text 1?
Why this answer
Independent summaries and a related concern | Review lesson 3.1
Correct choice: It accepts one reported improvement while identifying another consideration for evaluating the change.
Text 1 defines a specific efficiency gain: fewer kilometers for the same households. Text 2 accepts that gain but adds whether delivery times are useful to recipients. B preserves both the agreement and the added evaluation criterion.
A: Text 2 explicitly accepts the reduction in travel distance.
C: Text 1 says the same number of households was served.
D: Text 2 describes a scheduling problem in this case, not an unavoidable consequence.
If you missed it: Separate acceptance of a measured improvement from approval of the entire arrangement.
A ceramic artist notes that visible tool marks appear more frequently in her recent bowls than in her earlier work. She regards the marks as a record of deliberate choices made during shaping and says that smoothing them away would erase part of that record.
TEXT 2
An art critic also notes the greater frequency of visible tool marks in the artist's recent bowls. He interprets them primarily as invitations for viewers to imagine the shaping process, rather than as records whose value depends on the artist's particular decisions.
Both the artist and the critic would most likely agree that
Why this answer
Agreement despite different interpretations | Review lesson 3.2
Correct choice: visible tool marks are more common in the artist's recent bowls than in her earlier ones.
Text 1 states the change in frequency, and Text 2 independently accepts it. They interpret the marks' significance differently, so D identifies their shared observation without selecting either interpretation.
A: The critic makes the marks' value independent of knowing particular decisions.
B: That is the artist's interpretation, which the critic does not adopt as primary.
C: Neither text claims smoothing would improve viewers' understanding of the process.
If you missed it: Find a shared proposition before choosing between the authors' different explanations.
A conservationist supports reopening an old footpath but argues that doing so requires replacing its missing stone steps. The slope, she says, cannot provide a stable walking surface through drainage improvements alone; steps are necessary to make the route suitable for regular public use.
TEXT 2
A landscape engineer argues that drainage work and a firmly compacted surface could make the same footpath suitable for regular public use without replacing the steps. She supports reopening the route but considers the proposed stonework unnecessary for achieving a stable walking surface.
The authors disagree most directly about whether
Why this answer
Disagreement about a necessary condition | Review lesson 3.3
Correct choice: replacing the stone steps is necessary to make the footpath suitable for regular public use.
Text 1 calls steps necessary; Text 2 explicitly proposes a suitable route without them. A identifies the direct disagreement. Both favor public use and a stable surface, so those shared goals should not be confused with the disputed means.
B: Both authors support reopening the route.
C: Both use stability as a criterion for suitable public use.
D: Text 1 denies that drainage alone is sufficient; it does not deny that drainage can contribute.
If you missed it: Distinguish a claim that something is necessary from a claim that it merely helps.
A historian argues that a decline in handwritten recipe books shows that household cooks became less interested in experimenting with food. Once printed cookbooks became common, he reasons, cooks increasingly followed fixed instructions instead of creating and recording variations of their own.
TEXT 2
A researcher has examined printed cookbooks from the same period and found extensive handwritten substitutions and comments in their margins. She argues that experimentation continued but was often recorded inside commercially printed books, so counts of separate handwritten recipe books miss an important source of evidence.
How would the researcher in Text 2 most likely respond to the historian's explanation?
Why this answer
Response from Text 2 to Text 1 | Review lesson 3.4
Correct choice: By pointing out that cooks recorded experimentation in a form his evidence does not capture
Text 1 infers less experimentation from fewer separate handwritten books. Text 2 identifies marginal notes in printed books as another record of experimentation. C targets the evidence gap without denying the reported decline.
A: The marginal notes demonstrate that printed books did not prevent recording variations.
B: Text 2 does not dispute the count of separate handwritten books.
D: The researcher does not identify the source of the substitutions.
If you missed it: Challenge the inference with the responding author's evidence, without changing the original observation.
In a small rehearsal room, a percussionist found that felt covers on metal stands reduced unwanted ringing during quiet performances. She suggests that such covers can help control incidental noise in similarly small spaces where delicate sounds might otherwise be obscured.
TEXT 2
An acoustics specialist accepts that the covers reduced ringing in the reported room. He notes that the observation does not show whether audiences in large halls would notice the same difference, where distance and other sounds could alter the importance of the unwanted ringing.
Which choice best describes the specialist's response to the percussionist's finding?
Why this answer
A caution about extending a finding | Review lesson 3.5
Correct choice: He accepts the local finding while limiting what it establishes about a different performance setting.
Text 1 reports reduced ringing in a small room. Text 2 accepts that observation but distinguishes the untested question of noticeability in large halls. B preserves the finding and its limit; it does not imply that the percussionist made a universal claim.
A: Text 2 expressly accepts the reported reduction.
C: Text 2 supplies no large-hall result or comparison of effectiveness.
D: The original observation concerns ringing, not a survey of audience preferences.
If you missed it: Identify the new setting and outcome before interpreting a caution as a rejection.
A garden manager reports that plants near a low wall survived a cold night more often than plants farther away. She suggests that heat released by the wall after sunset was chiefly responsible, keeping nearby plants slightly warmer during the coldest hours.
TEXT 2
A horticulturist accepts the survival pattern but favors a different explanation. The wall also sheltered nearby plants from drying winds, she notes. In her view, reduced exposure to wind was probably more important than released heat, though neither factor was directly measured that night.
The authors agree about ______ but differ about ______.
Why this answer
Shared result and distinct favored mechanisms | Review lesson 3.6
Correct choice: which plants survived more often; which protective effect was probably more important
Both accept greater survival near the wall. The manager favors released heat; the horticulturist favors wind protection. Neither mechanism was measured directly, so the disagreement concerns the favored explanation rather than a settled comparison of mechanisms.
B: They both suggest the wall helped; the claimed disagreement is unsupported.
C: Neither text gives a measured amount of heat released.
D: They favor different explanations, and Text 1 does not discuss future measurements.
If you missed it: Keep the observed outcome separate from the ranking of proposed causes.
A language instructor found that learners who rehearsed new words in short sessions throughout a day recalled more words that evening than learners who completed one long session. She concludes that the distributed schedule improved recall at the end of the practice day.
TEXT 2
Another instructor used the same practice schedules with a comparable group but tested recall a month later. He found no difference between the schedules at that point. He argues that a benefit observed soon after practice need not persist over a much longer interval.
Which choice best describes the relationship between the findings?
Why this answer
Outcome timing and apparent conflict | Review lesson 3.7
Correct choice: They can be compatible because the studies assessed recall after different intervals.
Text 1 limits its finding to the evening of practice; Text 2 assesses a month later. D identifies the stated timing difference. A short-term advantage can occur even when a later between-group comparison shows no advantage.
A: The texts do not make recall effects constant across time.
B: Two between-group comparisons do not trace a steady decline within either group.
C: Text 2 describes a comparable group, not a less experienced one.
If you missed it: Match the testing interval as well as the practiced material.
A design scholar argues that an object can retain traces of an earlier use while serving a new one. Such traces can make the object's history legible without preventing practical adaptation. Preserving history, in this account, does not require freezing an object in its original role.
TEXT 2
A workshop converted a retired fishing boat into a mobile stage. The builders strengthened its floor and added lighting but left the worn rope grooves along its sides visible. During performances, audiences could still recognize features associated with the boat's former work.
Which choice best describes how Text 2 relates to Text 1?
Why this answer
Application of a general relationship | Review lesson 3.8
Correct choice: It illustrates practical adaptation that preserves recognizable evidence of an object's earlier use.
Text 1 links a new practical use with visible traces of an earlier one. Text 2 supplies both: the boat becomes a functioning stage, while rope grooves remain recognizable. C states the relationship that makes the case an illustration.
A: The builders leave the grooves visible.
B: No comparison of audience preferences is reported.
D: The retained traces are not shown to prevent use as a stage.
If you missed it: Match each essential part of the principle to a concrete detail in the case.
Commentators sometimes portray a town's shared ovens as signs that households lacked autonomy. But records show that families chose their own recipes and baking times while sharing the costly structure. The arrangement combined collective ownership with substantial control over individual household decisions.
TEXT 2
A social historian argues that pooling a resource does not necessarily eliminate individual decision-making. In several farming communities, households jointly maintained irrigation channels while deciding separately which crops to plant. Shared infrastructure and household choice operated together rather than as mutually exclusive arrangements.
The authors would most likely agree that
Why this answer
Attribution of a rejected interpretation | Review lesson 3.9
Correct choice: sharing a resource can coexist with meaningful individual choice.
The first author rejects the commentators' equation of shared ovens with lost autonomy. The second explicitly allows shared irrigation infrastructure alongside separate crop choices. A captures their common distinction between sharing a resource and controlling particular household decisions.
B: Neither author identifies reduced household differences as the main value.
C: Both texts provide cases inconsistent with that requirement.
D: The first author disputes the cited interpretation; the second supports the contrary distinction.
If you missed it: Identify the author's response to a cited view before seeking common ground.
A museum educator reports that visitors given a sketching task spent more time near an exhibit than visitors given no task. She argues that sketching can encourage longer visits to an exhibit, while acknowledging that time spent there does not reveal how accurately visitors understood its content.
TEXT 2
A learning researcher agrees that the longer visits are worth investigating. He cautions, however, that evaluating sketching as an aid to understanding requires a measure of what visitors learned. Remaining near an exhibit longer is not itself evidence of more accurate comprehension.
How would the educator most likely respond to the researcher?
Why this answer
Partial agreement and a limited measure | Review lesson 3.10
Correct choice: She would seek a learning measure while retaining her claim about longer visits.
The educator claims a behavioral change, longer visits, and explicitly leaves comprehension unresolved. The researcher requests evidence on that unresolved outcome. B preserves the behavioral claim while accepting the relevant limitation; the texts do not require a dispute.
A: The educator explicitly distinguishes time from accurate understanding.
C: Text 1 reports a behavioral change: longer visits.
D: Neither text provides a subgroup result based on sketching accuracy.
If you missed it: Preserve a supported narrow claim when accepting the need for a different measure.
A transportation researcher reports that closing a market street to cars increased the number of pedestrians counted there on Saturdays. She regards the increase as evidence that the closure changed how people used that street, while noting that her counts did not track nearby streets.
TEXT 2
A merchant accepts the reported increase but argues that recommending permanent closure requires knowing whether pedestrians were newly drawn to the district or merely redirected from neighboring streets. The same count on the closed street could fit either pattern of district-wide activity.
Which choice best describes how the merchant's position relates to the researcher's?
Why this answer
Distinguishing measurement from recommendation | Review lesson 3.1
Correct choice: It identifies an unanswered question relevant to a policy recommendation beyond her reported finding.
The researcher reports a local count and notes its geographic limit. The merchant accepts that report but asks a district-wide question before recommending permanence. D distinguishes the finding from the broader policy judgment and preserves the uncertainty both texts allow.
A: The merchant accepts the street-level finding; district-wide evidence is needed for the recommendation, not for accepting that count.
B: Redistribution is one possibility, not the established explanation or a measured district-wide result.
C: The merchant accepts those counts and asks what they mean for the wider district, not whether they were accurate.
If you missed it: Ask whether a response targets the measured result or a recommendation someone might draw from it.
A historian argues that shipping manifests are useful evidence of a port's commercial connections because they identify destinations for recorded cargo. She cautions that undeclared goods are absent, so the manifests cannot provide a complete account of everything that moved through the port.
TEXT 2
An economic researcher emphasizes that smuggling can leave important gaps in official port records. Nonetheless, he regards the destinations listed for declared cargo as evidence of at least some commercial connections. Missing traffic limits the records' completeness without making every recorded connection doubtful.
The authors would most likely agree that the manifests
Why this answer
Agreement on a boundary despite different emphases | Review lesson 3.2
Correct choice: document some commercial connections without necessarily documenting all movement through the port.
Text 1 accepts the recorded destinations but denies completeness. Text 2 explicitly makes the same distinction: missing traffic does not invalidate every recorded connection. C preserves their agreement without quantifying the gaps or adding a condition for using the records.
A: Neither author claims that the incomplete records support a ranking that includes all traffic.
B: Both authors allow some connections to be documented despite unfilled gaps.
D: Text 2 explicitly separates missing traffic from doubt about every recorded connection; neither author supplies this threshold.
If you missed it: Identify exactly what an incomplete source still supports; do not invent the size of its omissions.
A literary critic argues that a novel's use of a single narrator ensures a unified interpretation of its events. Because readers receive the entire story through one voice, he reasons, they are guided toward one consistent way of understanding the characters' actions.
TEXT 2
Another critic observes that a single narrator can revise earlier judgments or describe events that undermine the narrator's own explanations. One voice therefore need not produce one consistent interpretation: the tension between a narrator's claims and narrated events can sustain competing readings.
The critics disagree most directly about whether
Why this answer
Disagreement about what a formal feature establishes | Review lesson 3.3
Correct choice: using a single narrator necessarily guides readers toward one consistent interpretation.
Text 1 treats one narrating voice as sufficient to ensure interpretive unity. Text 2 denies that necessary consequence by explaining how tensions can exist within one voice. B states the disputed link, without broadening the issue to novels with several narrators.
A: Both accounts assume narrators provide information about actions or events.
C: Text 2 relies on that distinction, but Text 1 does not expressly deny readers' ability to make it.
D: Neither text establishes a position on what several narrators can produce.
If you missed it: Turn the disputed inference into a proposition and test whether the authors take incompatible positions on it.
A geographer argues that a map's usefulness depends partly on its purpose. Omitting small footpaths may make a regional map easier to use for planning long car journeys, even though the same omission would limit the map's usefulness for someone planning a local walk.
TEXT 2
A reviewer criticizes a regional road map because it leaves out many small footpaths. He argues that this omission alone makes the map unsuitable for planning any journey, regardless of the traveler's mode of transport or the geographic scale of the trip.
How would the geographer most likely respond to the reviewer's argument?
Why this answer
Response from Text 1 to a claim in Text 2 | Review lesson 3.4
Correct choice: By evaluating the omission in relation to the kind of journey being planned
Text 1 makes usefulness purpose-dependent and gives car travel versus local walking as the relevant contrast. Text 2 declares the omission disqualifying for any journey. A challenges that universal judgment without inventing a disagreement about what the map contains.
B: Text 1 identifies a genuine limitation for local walking, so it does not dismiss every effect on journey planning.
C: Text 1 says omission may help one use; it does not certify this map as adequate for every car journey.
D: Local walking is the stated case in which missing footpaths limit usefulness, not the case benefiting from omission.
If you missed it: Use the first author's principle to assess the second author's inference, not the unchallenged fact.
A marine researcher found that juvenile fish gathered more often near a textured panel than near a smooth one. She suggests that the texture provided shelter from currents, making it easier for the fish to remain in place. The study counted fish but did not measure local water movement.
TEXT 2
A second researcher considers the shelter account plausible but notes that more food may have accumulated on the textured panel. Without measuring either water movement or food availability, the study cannot distinguish those explanations. He proposes measuring both in a follow-up experiment.
Which choice best describes Text 2's response to Text 1?
Why this answer
Proposal of an alternative without denial | Review lesson 3.5
Correct choice: It identifies an alternative explanation and evidence needed to distinguish it from the proposed one.
Text 2 allows the shelter account but introduces food as another possibility. Because neither relevant factor was measured, it requests discriminating evidence. C captures the unresolved comparison; neither a replacement explanation nor a ranking of contributions is established.
A: Text 2 says the evidence cannot distinguish the explanations; it does not rank food as better supported.
B: No dependency between shelter and food accumulation is proposed in either text.
D: Text 2 leaves the mechanism unresolved and does not question the size or importance of the difference.
If you missed it: Keep a proposed alternative provisional until the passage supplies evidence that selects it.
A coach attributes part of her team's improved passing accuracy to shorter drills introduced midway through the season. She argues that the shorter sessions helped players sustain attention, while acknowledging that the team was also gaining experience through regular matches.
TEXT 2
A sports researcher emphasizes match experience as an important contributor to the team's improved passing. Repeated encounters with opponents can sharpen anticipation, he notes. He does not rule out a contribution from shorter drills, but the season's results do not isolate their effect.
Which choice best describes the relationship between the explanations?
Why this answer
Overlapping causes without a forced contradiction | Review lesson 3.6
Correct choice: They emphasize different possible contributors without making those contributors mutually exclusive.
Text 1 attributes only part of the improvement to drills and acknowledges experience. Text 2 emphasizes experience but allows a drill contribution. D preserves the overlap and the absence of an isolated causal comparison. Neither author makes the favored factor the exclusive cause.
A: Text 2 allows a contribution from shorter drills without affirming that it occurred. Neither author explicitly compares the sizes of the two proposed contributions.
B: Both texts leave room for more than one contribution, so neither account must exclude the other.
C: Text 1 proposes sustained attention as a mechanism for shorter drills, not for experience; the texts do not isolate an experience effect.
If you missed it: Check for words such as "part" and explicit allowances before labeling explanations contradictory.
A teacher reports that providing a vocabulary glossary improved comprehension of an article among students unfamiliar with its technical terms. She concludes that glossaries can help readers whose understanding is limited by unfamiliar terminology, without claiming that terminology is every reader's main obstacle.
TEXT 2
A second teacher provided the same glossary and article to students already familiar with the technical terms. Their comprehension scores did not improve. He suggests that support aimed at one obstacle may offer little additional benefit to readers who do not face that obstacle.
How would the first teacher most likely respond to the second teacher's interpretation?
Why this answer
Population boundaries and what they do not explain | Review lesson 3.7
Correct choice: By regarding it as consistent with her claim's restriction to readers facing unfamiliar terminology
Text 1 limits its claim to readers for whom terminology is an obstacle. Text 2 tests readers who already know the terms and reports no added benefit. B connects the observed boundary to the first claim's scope without inventing a cause for any remaining errors.
A: Text 1 makes terminology an obstacle, not necessarily the sole obstacle; Text 2 does not establish that stronger restriction.
C: The absence of a glossary benefit does not identify the causes of any remaining errors.
D: Identical materials do not erase the stated difference in readers' familiarity, which limits the first claim's scope.
If you missed it: Match a limited claim to the relevant group before using another group's result against it.
A craft historian argues that apprenticeship can preserve a technique without preserving every design made with it. A trainee may learn how to control a weaving tension and then use that skill to create unfamiliar patterns. Continuity can reside in a method rather than in repeated products.
TEXT 2
A music scholar proposes that the same distinction helps explain oral musical traditions. A singer may inherit a way of shaping a phrase while composing new melodies. What passes between generations can therefore include a practice of making, even when the resulting works differ.
Which choice best describes how Text 2 relates to Text 1?
Why this answer
Extension beyond an initial setting | Review lesson 3.8
Correct choice: It applies the historian's distinction between inherited methods and changing products to another artistic tradition.
Text 1 distinguishes a retained weaving method from new patterns. Text 2 explicitly carries "the same distinction" into inherited phrasing and new melodies. D captures the extension to music without asserting that the new example proves every tradition works this way.
A: Changing products alongside inherited methods is already the historian's account, so Text 2 does not replace it.
B: Neither text makes complete invariance of a method a necessary condition for changing products.
C: That separation is the central relationship Text 1 already states, not a newly identified limit.
If you missed it: Identify which conceptual relationship is transferred and which setting changes.
When Mara entered the house she had left years earlier, she reached automatically for a light switch that was no longer there. She laughed, then stood still. The new paint and furniture had surprised her less than that small, useless movement of her own hand.
TEXT 2
At the rebuilt station, I recognized none of the platforms. Still, my feet carried me toward the place where the old ticket window had stood. The habit seemed to have kept its own map, unchanged by all the construction I could plainly see.
Which statement best describes a similarity in how the texts portray their central figures?
Why this answer
Literary connection with restrained interpretation | Review lesson 3.9
Correct choice: Both figures discover that familiar bodily habits persist despite visible changes to a place.
Mara reaches automatically for an absent switch; the second figure's feet move toward the former window despite visible reconstruction. Both passages contrast persistent bodily habits with changed surroundings. A fits those actions without making them deliberate or treating them as accurate maps of the present.
B: The habits direct them toward absent features; neither figure treats those habits as more accurate about the present.
C: Neither text says the figures have lost conscious recall of the relevant features or use routines to recover it.
D: Mara reaches automatically, and the second speaker describes feet following a habit; deliberate reenactment is not established.
If you missed it: Ground literary comparisons in described actions before assigning motives or broad attitudes.
A historian finds that a factory's surviving letters frequently discuss equipment repairs. She argues that maintenance was a recurring concern for the letter writers, while cautioning that the letters cannot reveal its share of the factory's total expenditure. Frequent discussion and high spending are different measures.
TEXT 2
An economic historian agrees that the letters show repeated attention to maintenance. However, she argues that determining whether maintenance dominated the factory's budget would require financial records. A topic may appear often in correspondence because it generates repeated decisions, even if each decision involves a small expense.
How would the first historian most likely respond to the economic historian's argument?
Why this answer
Close-choice verification of a limited inference | Review lesson 3.10
Correct choice: By accepting the need for financial records while retaining the conclusion about recurring concern
Text 1 claims recurring concern but explicitly separates that from expenditure share. Text 2 accepts the concern and requires financial records for the budget question. C reflects this agreement about the evidence's limit. The possible small-expense explanation does not establish actual low spending.
A: The historian explicitly separates frequency of discussion from expenditure share, not merely from exact totals.
B: Text 2 offers small expenses as a possibility, not a finding about these decisions; recurring concern remains supported.
D: The texts say frequency does not itself establish spending, not that the two can never be related.
If you missed it: For each clause of a close answer, identify whether the texts establish it or merely allow it.