Inference questions

Inference questions are by far the most common question type in the GAMSAT, making up 61% of the questions in Section I in official practice materials.

Inference questions ask what the writer, passage, image or data suggests. You must identify what must be true based on the passage, which in most cases is not explicitly stated. The correct answer will be directly supported by evidence in the passage.

You do not need to guess or speculate. Instead, your task is to identify what logically follows from the information given in the passage. Wrong answers will contradict the passage or fail to follow logically from it, often because they rely on outside information.

Inference questions are one of the simplest question types to identify in Section I, as most will include ‘suggests’ or ‘implies’, because the correct answer is not directly stated in the passage.

There is no difference in meaning between ‘suggests’ and ‘implies’; both indicate an Inference question.

There is also no difference between ‘writer’ and ‘author’; these terms are used as synonyms in the GAMSAT. Some questions may use the author’s name, but only if the passage is attributed. The author suggests or implies anything that must be true based on the passage.

You may also see Inference questions with very short question stems:

• The author implies that
• The passage suggests that

These question stems do not contain any key phrases, which means that they cannot be hyperlinked to a specific section of the passage.

Use the question order in the set as a guide. The support for the correct answer to this question must appear in the passage somewhere after the support for the correct answer to the previous question and somewhere before the support for the correct answer to the following question.

While Inference questions appear across all passage types in Section I, the core skill remains constant: identifying what the passage supports without adding your own assumptions or outside knowledge.

Use this technique for each Inference question:

• Read the question stem.
• Use the hyperlink or context clues to find the relevant part of the passage.
• Read just before and just after the highlighted portion to find support for the correct answer.
• If in doubt, eliminate answers that are clearly not supported by the passage.

Practise using this technique to tackle Inference questions confidently on Test Day.

Notice that the technique for Detail and Inference questions is virtually the same. This serves a practical purpose: in many cases, it may be unclear initially whether it’s a Detail question or an Inference question.

Attack the question using the usual technique: follow the hyperlink or context clues to the relevant part of the passage, then read nearby to find support for the correct answer.

The key difference between Detail and Inference questions is the nature of this support:

• In Detail questions, the correct answer is on the passage’s surface – it will simply restate something directly stated in the passage.
• In Inference questions, the correct answer is a bit deeper or more challenging. It could radically restate the passage in a way that feels different at first glance but must be true, or it could combine details from the passage to assert something unstated but definitively true.

When an Inference question stem is quite short, you may find that the answer choices can be quite lengthy. This can make the answers more challenging to compare to the passage. One option is to leave them for last in the set.

Another option is to skip them until you complete a first pass through all of Section I. They are likely to be the most time-consuming questions in the section, so it may work best to mark immediately without attempting work on the first pass and return to them after you have locked in the marks on the simpler, quicker questions.

Every valid inference is backed by something in the passage through clear logic. You should be able to cite specific words, phrases, actions or data from the passage that support your reasoning for choosing the correct answer.

Everything you need to answer the question correctly is in the passage; you just need to spot the logical connections. If you find yourself making assumptions or adding information that is not in the passage, stop and refocus on what the text actually says.

In image-based sets, a valid inference must be true based on the content of the data, diagram or cartoon.

Most image-based sets include words, so you will often proceed with the usual approach to textual inferences. Look for answers that restate the text or that otherwise follow logically from the words in or near the image.

Sometimes, you must consider the visual elements of an image in order to make a valid inference. These might include:

• the orientation or arrangement of a diagram.
• relative positioning or directionality of specific elements within a diagram.
• trendlines or comparative sizes (of graph bars or pie chart segments) of data elements.
• interpersonal relationships and social context in a cartoon.
• body language and facial expressions of characters in a cartoon.

Note that the visual elements may add essential context for a valid inference. The visuals might even cut against the words in a decisive way. For example, a character’s comment in a cartoon might be ironic or hypocritical when you consider their facial expression or the social setting.

As you practise, you will start to see the same types of wrong answers in Inference questions. Learn to recognise how wrong answers manipulate the wording of the passage to sound correct.

Wrong answers may draw on words and ideas from the passage but recombine them incorrectly. These answers might look plausible because they use words from the passage, but they are not supported by the passage because they do not represent the ideas accurately.

Be alert to subtle differences in meaning. A trap may replace a word from the passage with a near-synonym that feels similar but changes the idea. For example:

• difficulty is not the same as impossibility.
• ignorance is not the same as deception.
• grief is not the same as regret.

Ask whether the passage actually supports the specific meaning used in the answer. Small differences can turn a correct inference into a wrong answer.

Look out for answers that narrow or broaden the passage’s scope. The correct answer will match the scope of what the passage discusses, so it will address:

• the same group or idea.
• within the same focus.
• the same time period.

By contrast, wrong answers will often:

• shift the parameters of the group or the nature of the idea.
• adjust the focus to be narrower or broader than the passage.

These shifts and adjustments can be extremely subtle – sometimes, just a word or short phrase can alter the meaning with great consequence, even when at a quick glance it appears to be roughly the same as the passage.

Find the same meaning with the same parameters and focus in the correct answer, and you will have the valid inference.

Non-fiction passages often discuss abstract concepts and their relationships to each other. Focus on identifying how concepts connect. Track logical relationships signalled by words such as:

• leads to.
• depends on.
• requires.
• develops
• implies.
• contradicts.

Correct answers frequently restate complex philosophical language with more concise expressions. Look for answers that capture the logic of the passage without necessarily using the same words.

In Fiction passages, correct answers often identify subtext based on textual clues:

• characters’ feelings.
• motivations.
• attitudes that aren’t directly stated.

You can draw inferences about characters from:

• physical descriptions.
• actions and behaviour.
• dialogue.
• others’ reactions.

When multiple details point to the same conclusion, your inference is on solid ground. If physical description, dialogue, actions and others’ reactions all suggest the same character trait, you can be confident in that inference.

Poetry passages often require you to interpret figurative language and symbolic meaning. This can make the inferences more challenging, especially if you have not read poetry since secondary school.

You must distinguish between literal and metaphorical interpretations to understand when language operates on multiple levels simultaneously.

In Fiction and Poetry passages, focus on the emotional charge of words in both the passage and answer choices. Words can be positive, negative or neutral. The correct answer must match the charge in the passage.

Wrong answers often include words with incorrect emotions. You can use emotional charge to quickly eliminate wrong answers. For example, if the passage describes positive emotions, eliminate answers that include negative or neutral words such as:

• bitterness.
• annoyance.
• indifference.

Use emotional charge as a quick elimination tool: wrong tone means wrong answer.

Opinion passages contain multiple short comments from different perspectives.

Inference questions in Opinion sets ask:

• whether a comment could be used to support a particular position.
• what can be reasonably inferred from a specific comment.

This requires you to trace the logical implications of each comment’s reasoning, not just identify its surface topic. You must identify what logically follows from the comment’s claims without overstepping into speculation.

A comment might never mention the specific proposition in the question or the answer choices, yet its underlying logic could still support or undermine that position.

To identify the correct answer to these questions, ask yourself:

Inference questions in Data sets often focus on what can reasonably be inferred from numerical data, not just what it explicitly shows. You will need to identify:

• trends.
• patterns.
• comparisons.

A trend is a consistent pattern of change over time. You can determine trends and make valid inferences from the direction and relative magnitude of changes without calculating exact values.

The vast majority of Section I sets that involve numerical data are simply about comparing the numbers.

Any numerical comparison or calculation is a valid inference if it uses numbers provided in the data. However, there are no official practice questions where the correct answer is a number calculated from the data.

Be ready to compare numbers without doing a full calculation. For example, if the correct answer is the highest product of various pairs of numbers from the data, you can compare these to see which pair has the two highest numbers – their product will be greater than all the others. The correct answer might describe the original numbers in words, but it is very unlikely to be the numerical product, as this would require a calculation.

Diagrams show processes, sequences or comparisons in a visual format. Inference questions test whether you understand what the structure of the diagram reveals about the relationships between the different components.

Inference questions might be about one small part of the diagram, or it could be just a single component or the connection between two components. Often, it will be about interpreting the terms of the diagram – the text labels on the components.

Correct answers will fit within the scale and scope of the information depicted in the diagram.

Wrong answers will go beyond the simple or contextual meaning of the diagram. In this, the wrong answers are similar to invalid inferences in text passages – they invite you to misinterpret or overstate what the passage supports.