Digital SAT · Reading & Writing
Inferences on the Digital SAT: All Question Types
Inferences questions give a passage that builds toward a conclusion and stops, asking which choice most logically completes it. The answer must follow from what the text actually says, with no outside knowledge and no overreach past the evidence. Many of these passages are science findings where the tempting choice generalizes further than the data allows, and many pivot on a contrast the reader has to track. This is an Information and Ideas skill and one of the hardest in the section, since believable is not the same as supported. Predicting the conclusion the text forces before reading the choices, then keeping only what the passage guarantees, is what separates the answer from the plausible imposters.
College Board skill: Information and Ideas: Inferences
How Inferences is tested
- how often it appears
- ~3 per test how often it appears
- typical difficulty
- Medium to hard typical difficulty
- practice questions in our bank
- 220 practice questions in our bank
One logical step
The answer must follow from the text by a single, small logical step. Predict how the passage logically continues before reading the choices.
Frequency and difficulty come from this skill's questions across our assembled full-length Digital SAT forms; the practice count is how many drills of these types are in our bank.
1 question type in Inferences
Common questions
What does most logically completes the text mean?
It asks for the sentence that must follow from the passage given what it says. It is a deduction from the text, not the most interesting or likely idea in general.
Can I use outside knowledge on inference questions?
No. The answer comes only from the passage. Bringing in facts you happen to know is the fastest way to pick a plausible but unsupported choice.
Why are the wrong answers so tempting?
They are usually true-sounding statements the passage never establishes, or generalizations that go one step too far. The test is what the text forces, not what seems reasonable.
Practice Inferences the way it is tested
Start with the free 16-question diagnostic, then drill any of these types with step-by-step reasoning.