Reading comprehension II: specific detail, inference and reference
This domain covers the items that send you back into the text: locating a stated fact, drawing a conclusion the text supports without stating, and resolving what a pronoun or determiner points to. Detail questions reward precision; inference questions reward discipline; reference questions reward grammar.
Locating detail
- Questions normally follow the order of the text, so use the previous answer as a starting point rather than rescanning from the top.
- Scan for names, dates and figures as anchors, then read the whole sentence around them. The number is rarely the answer on its own; the comparison base is (total versus per person, a rise in percentage versus in absolute terms).
- Paraphrase mapping: underline the load-bearing element of the question - who, when, how much, compared with what - and find its equivalent in the text, which will almost never be the same word.
Inference without over-reading
Work in two visible steps: (1) what the text states; (2) what must follow from it. If step 2 needs outside knowledge or a plausible guess, the option is wrong. Correct inference options are usually hedged: suggests, implies, is likely to, can be inferred.
Reference
- Track it, they, this, these, that, such, the former, the latter, the one, do so.
- This and that frequently point to an entire preceding clause, not to the nearest noun. Test by substituting the candidate back into the sentence and checking that it makes sense.
- Dummy it (It is said that…, It matters that…) has no referent; do not hunt for one.
- Singular they/their is standard for an unspecified person.
Worked example
Many coastal towns have restricted building along the shore, but such measures are often unpopular with developers, who argue that they cost jobs.
Question: what does they refer to? Candidates: developers, or the restrictions. Substituting developers gives developers cost jobs, which reverses the logic - developers claim their own projects create jobs. Substituting the restrictions gives exactly the claim developers make. The relative clause who argue already makes developers the subject of argue, so a second reference to them inside the same clause would be redundant. Answer: the restrictions (such measures).
Traps that cost marks
- Answering from general knowledge rather than from the sentence.
- Missing negation scope: few, hardly, not until, only if, rather than.
- Missing concession: Although the scheme was costly, it cut congestion is a positive statement about the scheme.
- Confusing false with not given: if the text neither confirms nor denies, it is not given.
- Binding a pronoun to the nearest noun instead of the nearest logical antecedent.