True in the world, absent from the passage
A first-year student is working on a reading passage from a mock test. The passage is a short city notice: 「Since April, Minamihama City Library has run a small reading corner on the second floor of the station. With a library card you can borrow up to three books there and return them either at the city library or at the corner. The corner is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day except the third Monday of the month. In its first six months about 4,200 people used the corner, and the city reports that the number of new library cards made at the city library rose by 12 percent compared with the same months last year. The city plans to open a second corner near the bus terminal next spring.」 The question asks: 「Which of the following is true according to the passage?」 The options are: (a) The corner is open every day of the year. (b) More people made library cards because of the corner. (c) Books borrowed at the corner must be returned at the city library. (d) A second reading corner will open next spring. The student chose (b), explaining: 「It makes sense - 4,200 people used the corner and cards went up 12 percent, so the corner must be the reason.」 He spent four minutes on this one item.
1. Explain why (b) is attractive and why it still fails, naming the exact words in the passage that decide it.
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(b) is attractive because it reuses two numbers from the text (4,200 and 12 percent) and supplies the link a reader's mind wants: two things happened at the same time, so one caused the other.
What the passage actually says is: 「the number of new library cards made at the city library rose by 12 percent compared with the same months last year」. That is a report of a rise. There is no word of cause - no 「because」, 「so」, 「as a result」 or 「thanks to」. The cause is supplied by the student, not by the writer.
A second detail works against (b) if you look for it: the cards being counted are made at the city library, not at the station corner, so the sentence does not even describe the same place.
(d) by contrast is a direct statement: 「The city plans to open a second corner near the bus terminal next spring.」 「reading corner」 = 「corner」, 「next spring」 unchanged. One paraphrase, no inference.
2. Give the checking procedure for 「according to the passage」 items and apply it to (a) and (c).
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Procedure. For each option, try to put your finger on the sentence that says it. If you cannot point to a line, the option is not the answer, however true it sounds in real life. Do this for all four options, then choose.
- (a) 「every day of the year」. Point to 「every day except the third Monday of the month」. The option deletes the exception. Contradicted, so false.
- (c) 「must be returned at the city library」. Point to 「return them either at the city library or at the corner」. The option deletes one of two permitted places and adds 「must」. Contradicted, so false.
- (b) No line supports the causal word 「because」. Not stated.
- (d) Line located. Correct.
Time discipline. Four minutes on one factual item is a scoring problem in itself. Mark it, move on, and return only if time remains; a 「true according to the passage」 item should take about 60 to 90 seconds once the habit is formed.
3. If the question were instead 「What can we infer from the passage?」, would (b) become acceptable? Explain.
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No. Changing 「according to」 to 「infer」 relaxes the requirement for a direct quotation, but it does not license invention.
An acceptable inference must be forced by the text: the reader should be able to say which details make the conclusion the most natural reading. Here the two facts are only placed side by side, with no comparison group, no timeline linking them, and no statement by the city. Many other explanations fit just as well - a new housing block, a school reading campaign, longer opening hours at the city library.
There is also a timing problem. The corner has run 「since April」, while the card figure is compared with 「the same months last year」, so part of the rise may predate the corner entirely. A careful candidate notices that the passage is arranged not to support the causal claim.
Inference items usually reward a conclusion the writer clearly wants drawn, for example 「the city thinks the corner is worth expanding」, which the plan for a second corner does support.