Making Inferences Practice 2

Making Inferences

 

Directions: Read each passage and then respond to the questions.  Each question will ask you to make a logical inference based on textual details.  Explain your answer by referencing the text.

 

Everyday after work Paul took his muddy boots off on the steps of the front porch.  Alice would have a fit if the boots made it so far as the welcome mat.  He then took off his dusty overalls and threw them into a plastic garbage bag; Alice left a new garbage bag tied to the porch railing for him every morning.  On his way in the house, he dropped the garbage bag off at the washing machine and went straight up stairs to the shower as he was instructed.  He would eat dinner with her after he was “presentable,” as Alice had often said. 

 

1.  What type of job does Paul work? ____________________________________________________

How do you know this?

 

2.  Describe Alice: ___________________________________________________________________

What in the text supports your description?

 

3.  What relationship do Paul and Alice have? _____________________________________________

Why do you feel this way?

 

Valerie opened up the letter from the military department.  She felt the pit of her stomach drop to the bottom of the earth before she even opened it.  She knew it was news about John.  As she read the first line, she thought of all of the lunches she had packed him and all the nights she tucked him in his bed and warded off the nighttime monsters.  The man carrying the flag put his hand on her shoulder.  She thought of the day that John signed up for the military.  Her tears wet the letter.  She stopped reading after the first line.

 

4.  What does the letter say? ___________________________________________________________

How do you know this?

 

5.  What is Valerie’s relationship to John? ________________________________________________

What in the text supports your description?

“Tommy!”  Mom called out as she walked in the front door.  “Tommy,” she continued shouting, “I sure could use some help with these groceries.  There was still no reply.  Mom walked into the kitchen to put the grocery bags down on the counter when she noticed shattered glass from the picture window all over the living room floor and a baseball not far from there.  “I’m going to kill you, Tommy!” Mom yelled to herself as she realized that Tommy’s shoes were gone.

 

6.  What happened to the window? ______________________________________________________

How do you know this?

 

7.  Why did Tommy leave? ____________________________________________________________

What in the text supports your description?

 

Ruby sat on the bed she shared with her husband holding a hairclip.  There was something mysterious and powerful about the cheaply manufactured neon clip that she was fondling in her newly suspicious palms.  She didn’t recognize the hairclip.  It was too big to be their daughter’s, and Ruby was sure that it wasn’t hers.  She hadn’t had friends over in weeks but here was this hairclip, little and green with a few long black hair strands caught in it.  Ruby ran her fingers through her own blonde hair.  She had just been vacuuming when she noticed this small, bright green object under the bed.  Now their life would never be the same.  She would wait here until Mike returned home.

 

8.  Why is Ruby so affected by the hairclip? _______________________________________________

 

 

What in the text supports your idea?

 

9.  How has the hairclip affected Ruby’s relationship? _______________________________________

 

What in the text supports your idea?

 

10. From where did the hairclip most likely come? _________________________________________

What in the text supports your idea?