Inference
Help Questions
LSAT Reading › Inference
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
Agencies that publish nothing about their models will face fewer legal challenges than those that publish model cards.
Small municipalities should avoid algorithmic tools entirely because they cannot manage transparency demands.
In contexts where revealing model details would enable easy evasion, a hybrid audit model is better suited to preserving enforcement effectiveness than full public disclosure.
Complete public disclosure of algorithmic systems is always preferable to constrained auditability because it maximizes legitimacy.
Constrained auditability cannot reveal biases in models without full access to code and data.
Explanation
The fare-evasion example shows disclosure enabled gaming, whereas confidential audits surfaced bias without compromising deterrence, supporting the hybrid's advantage in such contexts. The other options are absolute or contrary to the passage, which recognizes domain-tailored transparency and successful audits without full disclosure.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
Neither congestion pricing nor ride-hail caps can reduce traffic without worsening conditions for low-income residents.
Ride-hail caps tend to be more politically popular than congestion pricing because they are simpler to understand.
Cities with robust bus networks should prefer ride-hail caps to congestion pricing to improve schedule adherence.
Compared with ride-hail caps, congestion pricing offers more adjustable mechanisms for mitigating distributional harms as new data emerge.
Congestion pricing invariably reduces emissions more than ride-hail caps do.
Explanation
The passage highlights exemptions, discounts, and revenue earmarks as adjustable features of congestion pricing, while noting caps lack comparable levers and are hard to reallocate. The other options are absolute claims, political assertions, or prescriptions not supported by the described evidence.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
Market demand during Delatour's lifetime exceeded that of his avant-garde contemporaries, which led to his initial exclusion from surveys.
Delatour anticipated all major developments of twentieth-century modernism in his nineteenth-century work.
Delatour's elevated status in museum narratives is chiefly the result of changes in interpretive frameworks, aided by new archival evidence, rather than any alteration in the works themselves.
If the archive had not surfaced, Delatour's works would still have been reclassified as central to modernism based solely on visual analysis.
The newly found letters conclusively establish satirical intent for each of Delatour's paintings.
Explanation
The passage emphasizes that the paintings did not change, while new frameworks and archival materials enabled a reinterpretation that elevated Delatour. The other choices claim sweeping anticipations, conclusive proof, market facts, or an inevitable reclassification without the archive, none of which is supported.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
In a setting with weak enforcement and unreliable offset verification, a steadily escalating, rules-based emissions tax would provide a more durable price signal than a cap-and-trade program that relies on offsets and free allocations.
Cap-and-trade is generally inferior to a tax because it requires more complex administration.
Distributing allowances for free always increases total emissions under a cap-and-trade program.
Voters consistently prefer transparent dividends over long‑term investment of carbon revenues.
Administering a carbon tax never requires monitoring emissions.
Explanation
The passage explicitly draws a conditional contrast: under weak-capacity conditions, a rules-based escalating tax maintains the price signal more reliably than a cap reliant on offsets and free allocations. The other options make absolute claims not supported by the passage or ignore the conditional nature of the analysis.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
Absent mandated access to diagnostic data, policies that only raise collection rates are insufficient to significantly increase second-life reuse.
Extended producer responsibility policies always outperform deposit-refund policies on every metric.
Jurisdictions that already have high collection rates cannot benefit from deposit-refund schemes.
Cross‑border shipments are the primary driver of all observed differences in reuse rates.
Mandating data access reduces the volume of batteries available for material recycling.
Explanation
The passage indicates that reuse increases where data access is mandated and does not rise with collection-only policies, showing that information, not just collection, is the binding constraint. The other options overgeneralize, claim causation to shipments, or assert effects (like reduced recycling volume or universal superiority) not supported by the text.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
No-take reserves consistently outperform quota systems in accelerating fish biomass recovery regardless of context.
Once communities participate in reserve design, noncompliance ceases to be a concern for managers.
Leakage across administrative boundaries is eliminated by establishing a network of reserves.
Policymakers typically prioritize ecological outcomes over economic ones when choosing between quotas and reserves.
In jurisdictions with limited funds for monitoring and enforcement, the short‑term economic advantage of quota systems over reserves is reduced.
Explanation
Because quotas require substantial ongoing monitoring while reserves can lower patrol costs via enhanced voluntary compliance, scarce monitoring budgets diminish quotas' short-term advantage. The other choices assert universal success, elimination of noncompliance, or policymaker priorities that the passage does not establish.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
The 1120-1140 dry phase had no demographic effects on the riverine polity.
Absent harbor siltation, none of the inland towns would have been abandoned during the later drought.
Marine protein became the dominant dietary source across the entire region during the period in question.
Because some settlement contraction preceded 1180 and coincided with changing trade access, attributing all of the contraction to the 1180-1200 drought is inconsistent with the evidence presented.
The caravan road was constructed as a direct response to the 1180-1200 drought.
Explanation
The passage links pre-1180 contraction with harbor siltation and trade shifts, so a model assigning all contraction to the later drought cannot square with that sequence. The other options assert counterfactuals, deny possible effects, invert chronology, or overgeneralize dietary trends beyond the evidence.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
Standardized testing in the language reduces students' long‑term fluency by diverting time from conversation practice.
Every family pledge program fails unless there is full institutional backing from clinics and vendors.
A program that increases classroom hours without expanding the language's use in noninstructional settings will not, by itself, secure intergenerational transmission.
Elders are necessarily more effective teachers than trained classroom instructors in producing fluent speakers.
The best measure of revitalization success is the number of stores that conduct business in the language.
Explanation
The passage states that classroom instruction alone is insufficient and that transmission stabilizes when use extends beyond school, so school-only expansions cannot by themselves secure transmission. The other options overstate causal claims or propose specific metrics and comparisons not supported by the passage.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
The alternative estimator will always produce smaller effects than any other method.
Spillovers from early adopters unambiguously reduced employment in neighboring cities.
Early-adopting cities experienced no employment gains before adoption.
The program had no effect in any jurisdiction.
Using the naive average effect to forecast outcomes in late-adopting, low-capacity cities would overstate the program's likely impact for those cities.
Explanation
The passage states that naive estimates are biased upward by pretrends and spillovers and that late-adopting, low-capacity cities show near-zero effects when those are addressed, so applying the naive average to them would overstate impact. The other choices claim no effects, negative spillovers, universal estimator behavior, or no pre-adoption gains—each contradicted or unsupported.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the passage?
Libraries cannot increase overall visits unless they expand their physical square footage.
Partnership-based programming always costs libraries more staff time than in-house programming.
For branches aiming to attract more teens and young adults without expanding collections, adding programs is more promising than purchasing additional print materials.
Older patrons are less likely than teens to value quiet reading areas in libraries.
Branches that increase their print acquisitions will necessarily see a decline in program attendance.
Explanation
The passage links teen and young adult interest to programs and notes increased visits even with static collections, supporting that adding programs is the better lever for that audience. The other options overreach: A and E are absolute claims contradicted by examples, B is not established as a comparative fact, and D is refuted by increased programming without new square footage.