B1 reading asks what does the text say? B2 reading adds two harder questions: what does the text mean without saying it? and what does the writer want me to feel about it? Exams test this relentlessly — and so does every news article you will ever read.
What you can do after this lesson
You can draw conclusions a text supports but never states, and you can name an author's stance (approving, sceptical, neutral, alarmed) with evidence from their word choices.
The lesson
Inference — conclusions the text earns. An inference is not a guess; it is the missing sentence the stated facts point to. Ask: if these sentences are true, what else must be true?
"The clinic's only fridge failed in March. The replacement arrived in August."
Nothing says vaccines were unrefrigerated for five months — but the dates force the conclusion. Good inference stays one small step from the text; if you need outside opinions to reach it, you have left inference and entered assumption.
Stance — the writer's fingerprint. Writers rarely announce I disapprove. They signal it through:
- Loaded word choice: the scheme vs the initiative; officials admitted vs explained; costs ballooned vs increased.
- Hedging vs certainty: may possibly help (distancing) vs will clearly deliver (endorsing).
- Scare quotes: the "consultation" — the quotation marks are a raised eyebrow.
- What gets the last word: the paragraph-final position is the emphasis seat. Whose argument sits there?
The method: first extract the facts, then reread only the verbs and adjectives attached to each side. The facts tell you the story; the colouring tells you the stance.
Examples
Text: "The company promised 500 local jobs. Three years on, it employs 62 people, most of them on short-term contracts."
- Inference: the promise was not kept (62 < 500; the text never says "failed").
- Stance: sceptical — promised… Three years on sets up expectation against result, and most of them on short-term contracts quietly downgrades even the 62.
Compare a neutral rewrite: "The company currently employs 62 people." Same core fact, no eyebrow. The gap between those two versions is stance.
Common mistakes
- Over-inferring: concluding the company lied — the text supports did not deliver, not never intended to. Exams punish the extra step.
- Bringing your own opinion of the topic and reading it into the author. Evidence must come from their words, not your views.
- Treating hedges as decoration. arguably, so-called, critics claim are stance machinery — underline them.
- Ignoring what is missing. An article on a new mine that never mentions landowners is telling you something by silence.
Self-check — what can I do now?
Take one opinion or news piece today and answer in writing:
- State one fact the text implies but never says. Point to the sentences that force it.
- Name the author's stance in one word — then list the three word choices that prove it.
- Rewrite one loaded sentence in neutral language. What changed — and what did the author gain from the loaded version?