⏱ 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?

  1. ‘She had barely slept, but she arrived at the interview ten minutes early.’
  2. ‘The government announced the policy would be reviewed.’
  3. ‘He remembered every detail of that night — the smell of the rain, the colour of her coat.’
💡 Check Answers
  1. She was exhausted but very motivated / determined to make a good impression.
  2. The policy may be under pressure or is not working — ‘reviewed’ often means changed or cancelled.
  3. 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.