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SAT Inference Questions With However

Inference passages often build one idea, then turn with a word like however, although, despite, or yet, and stop at a blank. If you miss the turn, you will choose an answer that continues the first idea instead of reversing it. Those continuation answers are always among the choices.

The rule

A contrast word means the ending must push against what came before it, not extend it.

A contrast word tells you the direction of the ending before you know its content. If a passage reports that a method produced strong results in a laboratory, then begins the final sentence with however, the completion must go against that positive report. Perhaps the results did not hold outside the lab, or the method has a cost the lab setting concealed.

Sort the common signals into two buckets. However, but, yet, nevertheless, despite, although, and whereas all reverse direction. Therefore, thus, consequently, moreover, and in addition all continue it. On an inference question the reversing words are more common, because a reversal gives the test something for you to actually infer.

Although and despite are the trickier ones because they appear inside a sentence rather than at the start. In a sentence beginning although the survey covered thousands of households, the although clause concedes a strength, so whatever follows the comma must be a limitation. Students who read only the concession infer that the survey was reliable, which is the opposite of what the structure sets up.

Here is a worked example. Suppose a passage says a town installed new streetlights and reported fewer nighttime collisions, then adds that the town also lowered its speed limit that same year, and ends with a blank about what researchers can conclude. The added fact undercuts a simple causal reading, so the inference is that the drop in collisions cannot be attributed to the lights alone.

Predict a direction, then a rough content, then match. Even if your predicted sentence is clumsy, having a direction lets you cut two choices immediately, since they will point the other way. The remaining decision is usually between a measured statement and an overstated one, and the measured statement almost always wins.

The trap

Reading past a however or an although and choosing a completion that continues the earlier idea instead of reversing it.

Try it

Try one
Real question

A statistical model predicts a city's electricity demand from the previous day's temperature, fitted as a straight line through some three thousand six hundred daily observations. Engineer Marisol Quijano notes that the model was fitted using data from a decade in which the city had almost no air conditioning, and that air conditioning is now installed in four households out of five. The relationship between temperature and demand in a city with widespread air conditioning is known to be different in kind, not merely in degree: past a threshold the curve bends sharply instead of rising steadily. She concludes that applying the model to the city today ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

A lake's fish population can be estimated by marking a sample of fish, releasing them, and later recording what fraction of a second catch carries marks. The method assumes marked fish mix evenly back into the population. Limnologist Rangi Hikuroa clipped a fin on five hundred fish and released them all from one jetty. Tracking a subset that also carried small tags, he found that marked fish in one lake remained clustered near the release point for weeks, and the second catch was taken there, where one fish in three carried a mark. His finding implies that the resulting estimate ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

  • A) is too low, since too few marked fish were recaptured in the second catch overall.
  • B) is accurate, since the marked fish sample was large enough to provide reliable recapture data.
  • C) is too low, since the second catch contained an unrepresentatively high fraction of marked fish. ✓
  • D) is too high, since the marked fish were clustered and not evenly mixed throughout the population.

Why: The method assumes marked fish mix evenly back into the population, but the tagged subset stayed clustered near the jetty and the second catch was taken there, where one fish in three carried a mark. An inflated marked share makes the population look smaller than it is, so the estimate "is too low, since the second catch contained an unrepresentatively high fraction of marked fish." Answering that it "is too high, since the marked fish were clustered and not evenly mixed throughout the population." names the right cause with the wrong direction: clustering at the sampling spot raises the marked fraction, which pushes the estimate down. Answering that it "is too low, since too few marked fish were recaptured in the second catch overall." has the recapture backwards, since one in three is an unusually high marked fraction, not too few. Answering that it "is accurate, since the marked fish sample was large enough to provide reliable recapture data." rests on sample size, which the passage never questions; the problem is where the marked fish were, not how many were marked.

Practice more of these free

Questions students ask

What if the passage has no transition word before the blank?

Then look at the relationship between the last two sentences. If the passage introduced a complication, a limitation, or an unexpected result, the inference follows that. If it has been building one line of evidence steadily, the inference extends it.

Does although work the same way as however?

Both signal contrast, but although sits inside a sentence and introduces the part being conceded, so the main point comes after the comma. However usually starts the sentence that carries the new direction. Either way, the important idea is the one being contrasted with, not the concession.

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