Inference questions account for 13–18% of questions on the ACT Reading section and are some of the most difficult to answer. Let’s learn the exact strategies you need to answer inference questions correctly.
Inference questions will not have the answer stated in the passage like it would be in a detail question. Rather, these questions test your ability to deduce the best answer logically.
Here is an example of an inference question:
Notice how this question requires you to logically deduce (or infer) the best answer. Unlike detail questions, you won’t find the answer written explicitly in the passage. For example, the passage doesn’t say that the residents of Gordon Heights are artistic and sophisticated, but you are able to find out how best to describe the Gordon Heights residents through the language in the text.
Keep these points in mind when approaching an inference question:
The relevant passage lines for inference questions can be hard to find, as they’re typically spread out evenly throughout the passage. However, the question will usually provide keywords to help you know what part of the passage to search.
There will always be evidence for the correct answer. The ACT doesn’t make you guess—there will always be hard evidence in the passage to back up the answer. Sometimes the evidence will not literally be written word-for-word in the passage, but the meaning of the content will back it up.
It’s important to recognize what kind of question you are looking at on the ACT Reading section so you know what strategies you can use to answer it. So, how do you recognize an inference question when you see it? Let’s practice.
Below are two different types of questions, but only one of them is an inference question. Can you figure out which one?
Is the inference question the first or the second one?
Answer: The first question is the inference question. This question asks what the author “suggests.” This means that the author did not explicitly say what the correct answer is in the passage, and it’s up to you to infer which answer the author is suggesting the most.
The second question is a detail question because it is asking about what “the passage indicates.” In other words, the author explicitly says something in the passage, and your job is to find out what that was.
Let’s revisit the first inference question example, but this time we’ll give you the passage excerpt.
What do you think is the best answer?
Answer: A is the best answer. There are key words from the question that tell us where to look in the passage to find the answer: e.g., “dismay…moaning…so brazen" and “made himself respected in Cranford.”
Although the passage did not explicitly say that the Cranford ladies were outraged by followed by accepting of Captain Brown, there is evidence to suggest that they felt this way.
Inference questions are some of the most difficult questions to answer on the ACT Reading section, but you now have the strategies you need to excel at answering them.