Reading Skills :
Inference
Questions
Outcomes:
To know and practice
the skills needed for
the exams.
1
Inference Questions
• These questions are usually about a certain impression, image or
attitude created in a text.
• They require you to take information from the text and
interpret what the writer really means.
• Look at the following images – What are your impressions of the
people? Why?
Outcomes:
To know and practice the skills needed for the exams.
2
Impressions and images
Creating Inferences
• What impression do you get of the writer/an
organisation /people?
• What image does this text create of the
writer/an organisation /people?
• What are the writer’s attitudes to…?
Outcomes:
To know and practice the skills needed for the exams.
3
Hints and Tips
• This question is usually asking about the
writer’s viewpoint or impression. It is always
a good start to state if they have a positive
or negative viewpoint or impression.
• Always support your answer with evidence
from the text, i.e. quotation.
• You cannot simply list in this answer you
must expand on answers, picking out the
relevant info and showing that you
understand the text.
Outcomes:
To know and practice the skills needed for the exams.
4
Jamie Oliver
• Read the extracts Jamie Oliver and try to answer
this question:
What impressions of Jamie Oliver do you get
from these two differing extracts?
Outcomes:
To know and practice the skills needed for the exams.
5
•
•
•
Why we all hate Jamie Oliver - by
Mecca Ibrahim
Who is Jamie Oliver? Well, if you live
in the USA there’s a fair chance you
haven’t heard of him. If you live in the
UK and you have a TV, you will see
this cockney ‘chef’ appearing on
countless adverts for Sainsbury’s
supermarket as well as in his own
food programmes.
Jamie has this great ability to cause
emotions in people. Love him or hate
him, you can’t really be indifferent to
him. My husband liked his first TV
series and I really liked his second TV
series. By the third series we both
wanted to throw the trusty food mixer
at the TV.
•
•
How Jamie saved me, by a new-born
chef
TV chef Jamie Oliver taught 15 jobless
teenagers how to run a restaurant. Tim
Siadatan was one of the nine star
pupils. Oliver has gambled £1.3 million
of his own money to make the scheme
a success, and the programme showed
all the qualities that make the chef
admirable: he is hard-working, loyal,
responsible, generous and sympathetic,
but even these qualities did not
guarantee success. Viewers watched in
incredulity as the students appeared to
rebel against 27-year-old Oliver’s
attempts to persuade them into
working, opting instead to accuse him
of using them to forward his own
career, and often not turning up for
work at all.
Outcomes:
To know and practice the skills needed for the exams.
6
Ellen MacArthur
• Read the article ‘What Ellen Did Next’.
• Look at the first two columns (up to ‘Yet she did so
for a decade’)..
What do you learn about Ellen MacArthur in
this section of the article? (10)
Outcomes:
To know and practice the skills needed for the exams.
7
(This is the third style of Q)
Ellen MacArthur
• Look at the rest of the article (from ‘She says she is
never bored’).
• What are your impressions of Ellen
MacArthur in this section of the article?
How does Cassandra Jardine create these
impressions? (10) (This is the third style of
Q)
Outcomes:
To know and practice the skills needed for the exams.
8
Word/Phrase from Text
Impression it gives to the
reader.
‘She says she felt terribly guilty when
she saw the strain on her parent’s
faces’
9