Inference
Give a passage followed by a question whose answer is implied but never stated outright — drawn from a character's actions, word choice, or the relationship between two stated facts.
What inference means
An inference is not stated outright in the passage. You combine what IS stated with ordinary, sensible logic to work out what the author is implying but not saying directly.
The rule that keeps you honest
Every inference has to be provable using the passage. If you cannot point to the sentence, or sentences, that support your answer, it is not a real inference — it is a guess dressed up as one, and the test writers will have built a wrong option to catch exactly that guess.
A worked example
"Jess kept glancing at the clock and tapping her pen against the desk."
The passage never says Jess is impatient — but the clues (checking the time repeatedly, restless tapping) support inferring that she is. That is a proper inference: unstated, but backed by specific evidence in the text.
How to attack this question type
- 1
Ask yourself: "what does the author want me to conclude, even though they never say it in so many words?"
- 2
Reject any option that needs outside knowledge the passage does not give you — inference draws only on what is in the text, never on what you happen to know from elsewhere.
- 3
Reject options that just restate a literal detail word for word — if it is written outright, that is a different question type, not an inference.
- 4
Look for clues hidden in a character's actions, word choice, and what is left unsaid, not just in the plot events themselves.
Practice · untimed
Mira stood at the edge of the diving block, her toes curled over the rough concrete. Below her, the pool was so still it looked like glass, and the only sound was the distant hum of the crowd finding their seats. She had practised this dive four hundred times in her backyard pool, but four hundred practice dives had never felt like this.
Her coach, Mr Osei, caught her eye from the poolside and gave a small nod — the same nod he gave before every training session, nothing special about it at all. Yet today it steadied her more than any pep talk could have. She thought of her sister, who had come third in this same event two years earlier and had told her afterwards, "The water doesn't care how nervous you are. It only cares what you do next."
The starting buzzer sounded, sharp and electric, cutting through the murmur of the crowd. Mira exhaled slowly, bent her knees, and rose up onto her toes. Four hundred and one.
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What does the passage suggest is the reason Mr Osei's nod steadied Mira more than a pep talk could have?
More in Reading Comprehension
Literal detail
Give a short original passage (fiction, non-fiction, or poetry) followed by a question whose answer is stated directly in the text — a fact, number, name, or event the student only needs to locate, not interpret.
Vocabulary in context
Give a passage containing a word with more than one common sense, then ask what the word means AS USED in a quoted sentence from the passage.
Author's purpose and tone
Give a passage followed by a question asking why the author included a specific detail, or what tone/attitude the passage conveys.
Punctuation
Pick the one correctly punctuated sentence from five that differ only in punctuation — direct speech, apostrophes, commas in lists, comma splices.
Vocabulary in context
A word is used in one sentence; choose the meaning that fits that sentence, using its clues rather than the word alone.
Active and passive voice
Rewrite a sentence from active to passive voice, or back — the verb form and the agreement with the new subject are what is tested.
Idioms and sayings
Choose what a common saying means, against a literal reading and near-misses.
Sentence correction
One word in a sentence is wrong — usually a verb agreeing with the nearest noun instead of the subject. Choose the replacement.