⏱ 5 Minutes · B2
📖 From Experience
When I read Dostoevsky as a teenager — secretly, since books were not encouraged at home — I had no one to explain the subtext. I had to infer. I had to read what was between the lines. That skill — inference — is one of the most valuable in English reading, especially at B2 and above.
📚 What Is Inference?
Inference means working out meaning that is not stated directly. The author implies it; the reader deduces it.
Look for:
- Tone — Is the writer positive, sarcastic, worried, critical?
- Word choice — Why stumbled and not walked? Why claimed and not said?
- What is missing — What is the writer NOT saying?
- Context — What do we know about this situation?
✅ Examples
- “The manager smiled thinly and said nothing.” → Inference: she is displeased but is not expressing it openly.
- “He claims to have studied at Cambridge.” → Inference: the writer doubts this.
- “The restaurant has recently changed ownership.” → Inference: the previous management may have had problems.
✏️ Your Turn
What can you infer from these sentences?
- ‘She had barely slept, but she arrived at the interview ten minutes early.’
- ‘The government announced the policy would be reviewed.’
- ‘He remembered every detail of that night — the smell of the rain, the colour of her coat.’
💡 Check Answers
- She was exhausted but very motivated / determined to make a good impression.
- The policy may be under pressure or is not working — ‘reviewed’ often means changed or cancelled.
- This was a significant or emotional moment for him — strong memory encoding is linked to emotion.
Independent project — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Confers no qualification.
Leave a Reply