Reading Comprehension: Flat Ridership and the Overstated Conclusion
An exit-test reading passage describes a six-month campus shuttle pilot at a university with 14,000 students. Ridership rose 22% in the first eight weeks, then stayed flat at roughly 1,900 trips per week for the remaining sixteen weeks. The passage notes that the transport office ran only two buses on the busiest route, that the queue at the main gate averaged eleven minutes at peak, and that a survey of 640 riders found 71% wanted later evening service. The author closes with: 'The pilot proved that demand for shuttle services has reached its ceiling.' A candidate has narrowed one inference item to two options: (A) The flat ridership was at least partly caused by limited capacity. (B) Students are unwilling to use the shuttle in the evening. She also still faces a 'NOT stated' item and an author's-attitude item, with about 90 seconds of reading time left for all three.
1. Which inference option should she choose, A or B, and what reasoning earns the mark?
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A. The passage supplies a mechanism: only two buses on the busiest route and an eleven-minute peak queue. When demand presses against a fixed supply, flat ridership is compatible with unmet demand, so capacity plausibly caps growth. Crucially, option A is hedged - 'at least partly caused' - which matches an inference drawn from circumstantial evidence rather than proof.
B fails on the data. 71% of 640 riders asking for later evening service is direct evidence of willingness; the option asserts the opposite. A candidate who picks B has confused 'flat ridership' with 'no interest'.
Transferable rule: when two options are grammatically fine, choose the one whose modal strength (may / at least partly / always / proved) matches the strength of the evidence, and eliminate any option contradicted by a figure in the passage.
2. The final item asks about the author's attitude. How should she characterise the author's closing sentence, and why?
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The author is assertive, and overconfident in the inference. Two words carry the attitude: 'proved' and 'ceiling'. Nothing in the passage constitutes proof; the study is a single pilot with a fixed fleet and no control condition. The data support 'demand may be higher than the pilot could serve', not 'demand has reached its ceiling'.
So if the options include 'cautiously sceptical', 'confident but insufficiently careful', and 'neutral and detached', the middle one is correct: the author is committed to the conclusion and does not hedge it.
Note the structural tell - the author reports supply constraints, then draws a demand-side conclusion. An attitude item often tests whether you noticed that mismatch rather than whether you liked the author's tone. Attitude questions are answered from evaluative language ('proved', 'ceiling', 'only', 'average') and from what the author does with evidence, not from the topic itself.
3. With roughly 90 seconds left for three items, what is the most efficient order of attack and what must she avoid?
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Order: answer the inference item first (it is already reasoned - commit to A and move on), then the 'NOT stated' item by elimination, then attitude last, because attitude depends on the whole passage, which she has already read.
Method for 'NOT stated': for each option, locate the line that would support it. If a line exists but uses different words (a paraphrase), it is stated. If you must combine three separate facts to make the option true, it is an inference, not a statement - and if the option adds a judgement the author never makes, it is the answer.
Avoid: re-reading the whole passage (there is no time); changing an answer without a line reference; and leaving anything blank. A blank is a guaranteed zero, while a reasoned guess retains a 25% chance. If a single option cannot be eliminated, mark it and return only if time remains after all three are answered.