GRE Sample Test 4 Verbal Reasoning 2

This Inference question asks you to consider the information in the passage and speculate about the events that may have preceded those described. The phrase “for themselves” implies the patrons’ ability to locate their own books, so it follows that they would previously have needed assistance from librarians, choice (C). The passage says that Dewey was the first standardized method, but you have no basis to assume that no classification method existed before, (A). Similarly, nothing suggests that libraries kept their methods confidential, (B). Although Dewey helped patrons find materials themselves, no information in the passage implies that this change affected librarians’ jobs directly, so you can eliminate (D). As for choice (E), the passage implies that patrons may have had difficulty locating items, but to say that they were never able to understand any given library’s system is too extreme.