Inference question in Reading Comprehension Forum

[6lehderjets]

I've been drilling reading comprehension passages the past couple of days and I'm struggling with the inference questions (what would the author agree with types).

I take notes in the margins after each paragraph and have read Voyager's tips for RC and I follow those tips as well.

I have also began to physically mark the text every time I see the author's opinion. But I'm still having some trouble. I'm generally getting 2 wrong per passage and those 8 wrong questions are usually all inference questions!

Advice anyone?

Thanks for your time.

[bp shinners]

You say you're having trouble with inference questions, but the question you paraphrase isn't necessarily an inference question; it's an author's attitude question. Those come in two types - the straightforward attitude question ("With which of the following would the author agree?") and the inference types ("We can infer that the author of the passage would agree with which of the following statements?").

The former is looking for something that is stated in the passage. The question itself gives you little guidance, as it could be the author's main point or just a small thing that she discusses. However, you should be able to actually find the same idea in the passage somewhere.

The latter is an inference question, and it's asking you to make a jump between what they author states and what the answer is (sometimes; others, you'll get something the author says).

For both questions, you should go into the answer choices with an idea of with which viewpoint the author agrees. However, for the straight attitude question, I would quickly go back to the passage and check where it talks about that subject to see if it's stated. You will be able to find something similar stated by the author, like an agree question. For the latter, it's much more about taking the author's argument and applying it in a new or slightly different situation. They're trickier, but if you focus on what they author's already said, it should be a short (usually a VERY short jump) to the correct answer - don't start convincing yourself of an answer with, "Well, he says this, which is kind of like answer choice C if he also thinks________.". The jump between the two should be more along the lines of, "The author says A, and this is A, only in a trivially different situation."

[6lehderjets]

Thanks for the advice. Based off the Manhattan RC book they actually put author's attitude questions into the infer category because we should be able to infer the attitude from the passage. Depending on what prep material is used I'm sure that reasoning can be altered to make an alternative case.