To work out where and when this picture was taken you had to use:
Your knowledge of the world, possibly even your knowledge of history,
Your knowledge of seasons and
Your knowledge of physics
In other words, you had to behave just like a detective in order to come up with an answer. You needed to use your ‘powers of inference.’
Your ability to ‘infer’ comes from your personal experience, your knowledge about different subjects, your power of observation and your knowledge about how the world works.
Task Two
Let’s try another example. Read the following and decide what the season is.
When I got out of bed and looked out of the window I saw leaves all over the yard.
Understanding the meaning of a text is like building a bridge between
information that you already know and
information that is new
Click on the people on each side of the riverbank and then click the river.
As you have seen, a reader has to be active in building bridges.
Task Three
Now try building your own bridges by reading the short text below and seeing if you can work out answers to the questions.
The young woman walked a bit hesitantly towards the famous cozy Italian restaurant. She did not believe the excuse her parents gave her for having to meet her at the restaurant instead of at their house. To make matters worse, she was a bit grumpy because she was still catching up on the sleep that she lost during exam time. She noticed some cars that looked familiar in the parking lot. As soon as she walked through the door, she heard, "Surprise!"
