Inferences

Practice Questions

TOEIC › Inferences

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1

Pauline looked through the picket fence and scowled.

"Oh, those poor little rabbits!" she whispered to herself. "I don't believe that boy has fed them this morning. And now he's gone off to play ball. It is a shame!" She glanced under the grape arbor, where some chickweed was growing luxuriantly, and for a minute she hesitated. The next, she was down among the chickweed, pulling it up by the handful.

She approached the fence again, looked cautiously around, to make sure nobody was in sight, and then thrust the green stuff between the pickets.

That first time of Pauline's feeding the rabbits was followed by a second and a third, and finally it came to be a common thing for her to peer through the fence to see if they were supplied with food, and if not to carry them a good meal.

Adapted from Dew Drops by Emma C. Dowd (1914)

Based on the passage, what inference can be made about Pauline?

2

The natives of Australia were always few in number. Australia produced no grain of any sort naturally; neither wheat, oats, barley nor maize. It produced practically no edible fruit, excepting a few berries, and one or two nuts, the outer rind of which was eatable. There were no useful roots such as the potato, the turnip, or the yam, or the taro. The native animals were few and just barely eatable, the kangaroo, and the koala being the principal ones. In birds alone was the country well supplied, and they were more beautiful of plumage than useful as food. Even the fisheries were infrequent, for the coast line is unbroken by any great bays, and there is thus less sea frontage to Australia than to any other of the continents, and the rivers are few in number.

Adapted from Peeps at Many Lands: Australia by Frank Fox (1911)

Which of the following can you infer from this passage?

3

Pauline looked through the picket fence and scowled.

"Oh, those poor little rabbits!" she whispered to herself. "I don't believe that boy has fed them this morning. And now he's gone off to play ball. It is a shame!" She glanced under the grape arbor, where some chickweed was growing luxuriantly, and for a minute she hesitated. The next, she was down among the chickweed, pulling it up by the handful.

She approached the fence again, looked cautiously around, to make sure nobody was in sight, and then thrust the green stuff between the pickets.

That first time of Pauline's feeding the rabbits was followed by a second and a third, and finally it came to be a common thing for her to peer through the fence to see if they were supplied with food, and if not to carry them a good meal.

Adapted from Dew Drops by Emma C. Dowd (1914)

Based on the passage, what inference can be made about Pauline?

4

The natives of Australia were always few in number. Australia produced no grain of any sort naturally; neither wheat, oats, barley nor maize. It produced practically no edible fruit, excepting a few berries, and one or two nuts, the outer rind of which was eatable. There were no useful roots such as the potato, the turnip, or the yam, or the taro. The native animals were few and just barely eatable, the kangaroo, and the koala being the principal ones. In birds alone was the country well supplied, and they were more beautiful of plumage than useful as food. Even the fisheries were infrequent, for the coast line is unbroken by any great bays, and there is thus less sea frontage to Australia than to any other of the continents, and the rivers are few in number.

Adapted from Peeps at Many Lands: Australia by Frank Fox (1911)

Which of the following can you infer from this passage?

5

Paris is the culinary center of the world. All the great missionaries of good cookery have gone forth from it, and its cuisine was, is, and ever will be the supreme expression of one of the greatest arts in the world. Most of the good cooks come from the south of France, most of the good food comes from the north. They meet at Paris, and thus the Paris cuisine, which is that of the nation and that of the civilized world, is created.

Adapted from The Gourmet's Guide to Europe, by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis and Agernon Bastard (1903)

With which of the following statements would the author most likely agree?

6

Paris is the culinary center of the world. All the great missionaries of good cookery have gone forth from it, and its cuisine was, is, and ever will be the supreme expression of one of the greatest arts in the world. Most of the good cooks come from the south of France, most of the good food comes from the north. They meet at Paris, and thus the Paris cuisine, which is that of the nation and that of the civilized world, is created.

Adapted from The Gourmet's Guide to Europe, by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis and Agernon Bastard (1903)

With which of the following statements would the author most likely agree?

7

A really fine waterfall is a most fascinating thing. Long before you reach it you hear the roar of the water, and see the spray ascending like steam from a boiling caldron. Then when you stand before it, you gaze in wonder on the never-ending rush of water, hurtling in one great mass from top to bottom of the lofty cliff, or leaping in mighty bounds from ledge to ledge.

Adapted from Peeps at Many Lands: Norway by A. F. Mockler-Ferryman (1911)

What is the purpose of this passage?

8

A really fine waterfall is a most fascinating thing. Long before you reach it you hear the roar of the water, and see the spray ascending like steam from a boiling caldron. Then when you stand before it, you gaze in wonder on the never-ending rush of water, hurtling in one great mass from top to bottom of the lofty cliff, or leaping in mighty bounds from ledge to ledge.

Adapted from Peeps at Many Lands: Norway by A. F. Mockler-Ferryman (1911)

What is the purpose of this passage?

9

John Scott and Philip Lannes walked together down a great boulevard of Paris. The young American's heart was filled with grief and anger. The Frenchman felt the same grief, but mingled with it was a fierce, burning passion, so deep and bitter that it took a much stronger word than anger to describe it.

Both had heard that morning the mutter of cannon on the horizon, and they knew the German conquerors were advancing. They were always advancing. Nothing had stopped them. The metal and masonry of the defenses at Liège had crumbled before their huge guns like china breaking under stone. The giant shells had scooped out the forts at Maubeuge, Maubeuge the untakable, as if they had been mere eggshells, and the mighty Teutonic host came on, almost without a check.

The Forest of the Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne, by Joseph A. Altshelter (1915)

Based on the passage, we can conclude that the main characters think the Germans are ______________.

10

The history of Greece goes back to the time when people did not know how to write, and kept no record of what was happening around them. For a long while the stories told by parents to their children were the only information which could be had about the country and its former inhabitants; and these stories, slightly changed by every new teller, grew more and more extraordinary as time passed. At last they were so changed that no one could tell where the truth ended and fancy began.

The beginning of Greek history is therefore like a fairy tale; and while much of it cannot, of course, be true, it is the only information we have about the early Greeks.

-Adapted from The Story of the Greeks by H.A. Guerber (1896)

Based on this passage, what can readers infer about fairy tales?

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