English · Inference & Evidence
Comprehension X-Ray
Highlight the two sentences that most strongly support this idea. Then check your clues.
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Why this works
Turning at the fork without checking the sign and warning others about a particular loose step suggest Maya knows the route. A previous visit is one reasonable explanation. These details do not prove it: someone could have described the route or warned her about the step. The bus, rain, mud, map, closure and gulls describe the scene but are not as direct a link to Maya’s knowledge. Explain how a clue supports your idea, and recognise when another explanation is possible.
Helping a child through Comprehension X-Ray
Hints, least revealing first
- Look for a detail that supports this particular idea, rather than just mentioning the same place.
- Details about the weather help set the scene. Which details suggest Maya already knows the route?
- Think about her turn at the fork and her warning about a particular step. Could she have learnt these details another way?
What usually goes wrong here
- Chooses a plausible inference without enough textual evidence.
This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on infer implicit meaning, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
4 11+ skills this exercise practises
Each of these has its own page, with a worked example on it. 2 of the 4 name the mistake that skill attracts.
- Identify textual moodIdentify the mood created by a short passage or poem.
- Identify writer viewpointIdentify the writer viewpoint from language choices.
- Infer implicit meaningDraw one supported conclusion that is not directly stated.
- Retrieve an explicit detailFind a detail stated directly in a passage.
You can reuse this. Here is exactly how far that goes
Tutors, teachers and editors keep asking, so this is the answer in writing rather than by email. You do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to tell us.
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Embed this exercise
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If this one was hard, it helps to know which bit was hard
This exercise leans on 4 skills at once, so getting stuck could mean any one of them. Twenty minutes of questions across all four subjects will tell you which.