Inference

Identify an idea that is implied but not stated in the passage. TOEFL Reading Inference questions ask the test taker to identify an idea that was suggested by the information presented in the passage but not directly stated. They are easy to identify because they usually have the word “infer” or “imply” or “suggest” in the question. The test taker needs to be able to understand all of the ideas and concepts in the passage and use them to logically see what other details the author was trying to imply. These questions are similar to inference questions because they ask for information that was not directly stated in the passage. All of the answer choices will include information that was presented in the passage, but the distractors will make statements that cannot be inferred from that information. They may be accurate statements about the topic, but the reader would only know that from their own prior knowledge, so they would be incorrect answers.