The nature of English literature reflects the rich and diverse vocabul

As is the case with many inference questions, the author isn’t giving us an explicit logical argument with a nice conclusion, but we do end up with straightforward descriptions of the English and French languages. Let’s break them both down, making sure that we’re not getting sloppy with the language.

For English:

• Anglo-Saxon was the first influence on English language.
• Later, French became a second influence on English language.
• English language has a rich and diverse vocabulary.
• English literature reflects that rich and diverse vocabulary.

And for French:

• Latin is the main influence on French language.
• Celtic may have been around France before Latin, but only trace amounts of it show in French language. So French is really all about its Latin roots.
• French literature reflects simplicity and clarity.

There’s nothing terribly complex in this passage, but the most common error we see on this question is when test-takers fail to notice which descriptions refer to the English and French languages, and which describe the literature. More on that in a moment.

So… which one of the following can be most reasonably inferred from the information above?


Choice (A) looks fine. The passage states that the diverse vocabulary of English language is reflected in English literature. This diversity is caused by the fact that English language evolved from two different root languages (Anglo-Saxon and French). Therefore, these diverse origins have shaped English literature.

And here’s the most common mistake we see on this passage: (A) just seems too darned obvious. We didn’t have to work hard to “infer” that (A) is true, so maybe it’s not really correct. But that’s a dangerous way to think about inference questions, as we discussed in this video: all you need to do is find the four answer choices that are NOT true, and eliminate them. Don’t overthink the definition of “infer” or “inference.”

Anyway, (A) is totally reasonable, so let’s keep it and see if we can eliminate the other choices.


Nothing in our breakdown compares the richness of English and French vocabularies. We know that English has a rich vocabulary, but the passage says nothing about how rich the French vocabulary is, let alone how that compares to the richness of English vocabulary. Let’s eliminate choice (B).


Nothing in our breakdown compares the size of English and French vocabularies. While the author says that French literature is distinguished by simplicity and clarity, this doesn’t really tell us much about how many words are in the French language, nor how it compares to the English language.

So we can eliminate choice (C).


This leap of logic goes way beyond the information we’re given about French and English. There are tons of languages and literary traditions in the world beyond these two languages, and the passage doesn’t connect these statements about French and English to the (much broader!) act of writing ALL literature. It’s a HUGE stretch to say that simple and clear literature cannot be written in languages with a diverse vocabulary, so we can eliminate (D).


We know that the French language has had a major impact on the English language. However, nothing in the passage discusses how English and French literature have influenced each other.

So (E) is out, and (A) is our answer.