Topic 3.4 Sufficient Evidence: select sufficient and varied evidence to support an argument, judging when a claim is adequately supported and when it overreaches.

What this topic is asking

Topic 3.4 (skill CLE-1.C) asks you to judge sufficiency: whether a body of evidence is enough, and varied enough, to support a claim. Relevance asks whether a piece of evidence bears on the claim; sufficiency asks whether there is enough of it. A relevant but lonely example cannot carry a sweeping claim. The skill is matching the weight of your evidence to the size of your claim.

What sufficiency means

Sufficiency is a relationship between two things: the evidence and the claim. The same single survey might be perfectly sufficient for a narrow claim ("at this one company, remote work raised output") and wholly insufficient for a broad one ("remote work makes everyone more productive"). Always read sufficiency as a match.

Sufficiency is not relevance

Unit 1 covered relevance: whether a piece of evidence bears on the claim. Sufficiency is the next question. Evidence can be perfectly relevant and still insufficient, if there is too little of it. A writer needs both: each piece relevant, and enough pieces, of enough kinds, to carry the weight.

Variety strengthens evidence

Three statistics from the same study are less convincing than a statistic, an expert's testimony, and a concrete example pointing the same way. Variety guards against the charge that the evidence is cherry-picked or narrow. It also lets you reach different parts of an audience, since some readers trust data and others trust stories.

Why this matters for the exam

On the multiple choice section, reading questions ask whether evidence adequately supports a claim or what additional evidence would strengthen it. On the argument and synthesis essays, the evidence-and-commentary band rewards arguments built on sufficient, varied evidence, and the sophistication point often goes to writers who qualify a claim to match their evidence rather than overreaching. Overreach is one of the most common reasons an otherwise good essay stalls in the middle of the rubric.

Try this

Q1. In one sentence, distinguish sufficiency from relevance. [Recall]

• Cue. Relevance asks whether a piece of evidence bears on the claim; sufficiency asks whether there is enough evidence, and enough variety, to support it.

Q2. A writer claims that "video games improve problem-solving for all children" and cites one study of 20 teenagers. Why is the evidence insufficient, and what are two fixes? [Short explanation]

• Cue. The claim is universal ("all children") but the evidence is a single small study of teenagers, too narrow to carry it. Fix one: add varied evidence across ages and studies. Fix two: qualify the claim, e.g. "some research suggests video games may improve problem-solving for older children."