Richard-Business Eng
Professionelle Lehrkraft
Mini-Article: Understanding the IELTS Reading, Comprehension and Inference Skills
In the reading and comprehension part of most English Language Examinations, including the IELTS and TOEFL exams, test takers are often asked to make inferences.
The following discussion will explain what an infernce is and also test your ability to identify and understand an inference... 
have fun... 
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Definitions

Infer (verb):
to guess, believe, think, judge and arrive at a conclusion that something is true by reasoning, facts, statements, observations, or based on evidence.

Inference (noun):
the process of arriving at some conclusion that may not be logical but is possible or probable based of some evidence.

An inference is an idea, assumption or conclusion that's drawn from evidence and reasoning. An inference is an educated guess.
When you make an inference, you're reading between the lines or just looking carefully at the facts and coming to conclusions. You can also make faulty inferences. If you hear a person's weight is 250 pounds, you might make the inference that they're overweight. But what if they're seven feet tall?
We make inferences all the time in real life. For instance, your girlfriend might say to you, "Nice hair," and you could make the inference that she is being rude because she was smirking when she said it. 
In life, it's pretty easy to infer the implied meaning – the meaning that isn't stated directly – because you can use context clues like body language, tone, and gestures to help you get the real meaning.

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To see the inference, click after the word "Inference:"
But first, try to draw your own inference, your own thoughts and conclusion.


1.  A man ran after a retreating bus, waving his briefcase frantically.

Inference: The man had to take that bus to work and he was running late. He wanted the bus driver to stop the bus so he could get on it.

2. John wished that he hadn’t listened to the radio.  He went to the closet and grabbed his umbrella even though he would feel silly carrying it to the bus stop on such a sunny morning.

Inference: John heard that it was going to rain later in the day.


3. You are a man and as you give a speech in front of a large audience, you realize that people are laughing and pointing to the region below your waist.

Inference: You forgot to zip up your fly or you have something on your pants.


4. No, Honey, I don’t want you to spend a lot of money on my birthday present. Just having you for a husband is the only gift I need. In fact, I’ll just drive my old rusty bucket of bolts down to the mall and buy myself a little present. And if the poor old car doesn't break down, I’ll be back soon.

Inference: The wife wants the husband to buy her a new car for her birthday.


5. You're driving on the highway, listening to the radio, and a police officer pulls you over.

Inference: You've broken the law in some way while driving.


6. I watch a man run towards the gate at the airport and he looks very anxious and stressed.

Inference:  The man may be late for his flight.


7.  Your teenage daughter comes home early from her date with her boyfriend. She runs into her bedroom and slams the door.

Inference:  She and her date had a fight.

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If you have a question related to the IELTS exam, you are welcome to message me (just point at my photo and click message).
16. Aug. 2017 00:35
Kommentare · 5
1

Girl2012...

The examples I posted are similar to the exam questions, however the exam inferences are usually drawn from complete paragraphs.


Jack...

Based on the limited information provided in the sentence the only evidence that we have or conclusion that we can reach is that the police officer must have had a good reason to ask me to pull over. Maybe the police officer wanted to tell me that my rear lights were not working properly. Actually, he could have pulled me over for any number of reasons, so we should be careful not to guess (infere) that he wanted to administer a breathalyzer test.


Sudeep...

You certainly have an active imagination :)

When we make inferences we must be careful not to assume, guess, imagine, or fabricate scenarios for which there is no justfication, i.e., no evidence, no reason to suppose.

For example:

Your teenage daughter comes home early from her date with her boyfriend. She runs into her bedroom and slams the door.

So, what do you really know and what can you reasonably infere:

1  You know your daughter is home early
2  You can be quite sure that she is angry because she slammed the door closed (not her usual behaviour)
3  You may assume/guess that the cause of her anger may be related to her date with her boyfriend
4  You may assume that she doesn't want to discuss the problem because she has isolated herself in her room.

Assuming or infering anything more than these basic inferences may be supposing too many things for which there is no basis.

Thanks for all your great responses Sudeep...

16. August 2017
1

Here is my try:

1- Maybe he saw his childhood friend after a long year, so got overwhelmed!

2- Weather forecast on the radio warned him about the hazy weather.

3- He forgot to zip up while hurrying up to the podium after relieving himself. 

4- She really needs something but hesitates to say by portraying her car as a poor and old:) A very smart way to ask for a present without being very demanding!

5- Listening to the radio with a loud noise may lead one brush with an accident as he can't listen to the horn of the vehicles behind him.

6- He had to see off his friend but due to heavy traffic on his way, he is afraid that the plane might have taken off.

7- The date didn't go well as her boyfriend forgot his wallet at home and she had to pay the big amount of bill with extra tips:)

This is again a helpful topic, Richard! Thank you very much for your valuable time and effort:)

ETA: After writing my inferences, I looked at yours and I found my inferences to 2, 3 and 4 are quite similar to yours. We have three matches:)

16. August 2017
1

@Jack

The great possibility was you drove fast on highway and you were asked to pull over your car.

16. August 2017
1
 You're driving on the highway, listening to the radio, and a police officer pulls you over.

Inference: I guess the police is carrying out the breath test for drivers on the road so I was asked to pull over my car.
16. August 2017
1
Reading comprehension is the main part when we study English at school, there are always having four different kind of styles articles of each testing paper for students, sometimes it's very difficult to conclude the correct one. Above these sentences you listed are easy to infer the meanings. I don't have any experiences about IELTS exam,  are these sentences all collected from test papers or just put here to help students how to get through such test?
16. August 2017
Richard-Business Eng
Sprachfähigkeiten
Chinesisch (Mandarin), Englisch, Französisch
Lernsprache
Chinesisch (Mandarin)
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