Lab Activity 52: Making Inferences from Details

Chapter 11: Inferences
Lab Activity 52: Making Inferences from Details

Objective
To use supporting details to make accurate inferences.

Step 2: Read the following passage from a college sociology textbook and determine the most logical inference for each selection.

If you receive poor grades this semester, wouldn't you like to use a magic marker to, presto! change them into higher grades? I suppose every student would. Now imagine that you had that power. Would you use it?
Some people in authority apparently have found such a magic marker, and they are using it to raise our embarrassingly low national SAT scores. Table 274 of the 1996 edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States says that in 1995 only 8.3 percent of students earned 600 or more on the verbal portion of the SAT test. The very next edition, in 1997, however, holds a pleasant surprise. Table 276 tells us that it was really 21.9 percent of students who scored 600 or higher in 1995. Later editions of this source retain the higher figure. What a magic marker!

In the twinkle of an eye, we get another bonus. Somehow, between 1996 and 1997 the scores of everyone who took the test in previous years improved. Now that's the kind of power we all would like to have. Students, grab your report cards. Workers, change those numbers on your paycheck.
It certainly is easier to give simpler tests than to do better teaching. And this is what has happened to the SAT. The test is now shorter and students have more time to answer fewer questions. To make the verbal part easier, the test on antonyms was dropped. Results of previous years were then "rescored" to match the easier test. This "dummying down" of the SAT is a form of grade inflation.

—Adapted from Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., pp. 362–63

5. "If you receive poor grades this semester, wouldn't you like to use a magic marker to, presto! change them into higher grades? I suppose every student would."

From this statement, you can infer that the author's attitude exhibits

a. approval and pleasure.

b. disapproval and sarcasm.

c. boredom and apathy.

d. delight and surprise.

6. "Some people in authority apparently have found such a magic marker, and they are using it to raise our embarrassingly low national SAT scores."

A biased word in this sentence that helps the reader infer the author's opinion is

a. people.

b. authority.

c. embarrassingly.

d. scores.

7. "It certainly is easier to give simpler tests than to do better teaching."

From this statement the reader can infer that

a. the good teachers give easy tests.

b. when students do poorly, it's because the teachers give tests that are too hard.

c. good teaching can be difficult work.

d. all teachers are poor teachers.

8. "To make the verbal part easier, the test on antonyms was dropped."

From this sentence, the reader would infer that

a. previously, one difficult aspect of the SATs were the antonym questions on the verbal section.

b. test designers did not create fair questions on the verbal section of the SAT.

c. the math sections were easier than the verbal sections.

d. students who did not do well on the verbal section did best on the antonym questions.

9. "Results of previous years were then ‘rescored’ to match the easier test."

a. The scores of students who took the test in 1990 dropped after 1996.

b. The scores of students who took the test in 1990 showed no change after 1996.

c. To rescore the SAT after 1996 is another way of saying all scores were raised.

d. I.Q. scores after 1996 were raised to correspond to the rescoring on those of the SATs.

10. "This ‘dummying down’ of the SAT is a form of grade inflation."

From this statement, the reader can infer that the author

a. approves of the rescoring of the SATs.

b. disapproves of the grade inflation.

c. approves of grade inflation.

d. disapproves of all standardized testing.