Unit Six

Reading skills

Reading between the lines--making inferences

Writers don't always express all their thoughts directly,but they give you hints (暗示、示意）or clues (线索）that help you “read between the lines”. The information is not clearly stated. We make an inference or a guess.

1. Make use of contextual (上下文的）clues, common sense, and our background knowledge.

2. Connect ideas and draw conclusions from the reading text.

3. Form and test what we have understood between the lines.

Here are examples from Text A:

Example 1

To his troops’ astonishment, he ordered their cooking pots crushed and their sailing ships burned. (para. 2)

Question: Why did Xiang Yu do something so unusual or insane?

Possible answer: What he did was part of his strategy and the action was necessary to assure that the troops would eventually defeat the enemy. He made a bold sacrifice when he destroyed any chance for running away and left his troops with only one option:to fight for their lives.

Example 2

General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a veteran leader who was highly respected for his many conquests and who achieved the summit of success. (para. 3)

Question: What inferences can be made from the statement?

Possible answer: It was exactly due to using these seemingly abnormal battle strategies that General Xiang Yu successfully defeated his enemy and won his soldiers’high respect.