Hi, I'm Michael from ETS. Today on Inside the TOEFL Test, we're going inside the TOEFL iBT Reading section.
Specifically, the Inference and Rhetorical Purpose questions. Inference questions ask you to identify information or comprehend an idea that is not explicitly stated in the reading passage.
You can recognize inference questions because they usually include the words "infer," "imply" or "suggest," like in these examples. Rhetorical purpose questions are similar, because they also ask for information not explicitly stated.
These will ask why the author has presented a piece of information. One way to approach these types of questions, if you can't identify the correct answer immediately, is to eliminate wrong answers.
You will see more on this as we go through the example. Now let's do a sample inference question.
Here's a paragraph from a reading passage about meteorite impacts. Next, let's look at the question.
You see that it uses the word "inferred", so that clearly tells you that it's an inference question. Can you identify the correct answer?
It's Choice C, because it's supported by this sentence, which indicates that scientists knew in 1980 that there had been an impact and this one, where it said the site had been located in the Yucatan. Let's look at why the other choices can be eliminated.
Choice A is not correct, because there isn't anything written or implied in the passage about geologists keeping the impact site secret. Choice B is also not correct, saying that it was a "well known fact" contradicts the passage where it talks about the discovery of the crater in the Yucatan.
Choice D also can't be correct, because the paragraph doesn't mention climate as a factor in the discovery of the impact site. Now let's look at an example of a rhetorical purpose question.
