Inferences and conclusions: reading practice set 2

Oren had checked his sister’s new address against her last letter before writing it on the invitation. Inside, he described the evening warmly and mentioned the chair he had already set aside for her. He read the invitation twice, folded it, and placed it beside the outgoing mail. When the collection cart rattled past the window, he reached for the envelope but did not open the door. Later, hearing someone on the stairs, he slipped it into a drawer. That night he moved the extra chair closer to the table. The envelope remained where he had hidden it, still without a stamp.

For most of April, Niko’s diary gives a short weather entry each evening. Rain, clear skies, and strong winds all receive a few words. The pages for April 12 through April 16 contain no weather notes. On April 11, however, Niko wrote that he was leaving the diary at home while visiting his cousin. His next entry begins, “Back this afternoon.” A later reader noticed the blank pages and wondered what the weather had been like during those days.

When Sal returned home, the guest-room bed had been made and the small suitcase was gone. The coat that had hung beside the door was gone too. On the kitchen table lay the spare house key, placed on a clean saucer. There was no note. Sal checked the message board, where guests usually wrote their travel plans, but it still held only an old shopping list. He put the key back in its drawer and left the evening meal for one warming on the stove.

Mara had revised the harbor description until every sentence pleased her. Yet when she read the chapter aloud, the description stopped the argument just as it was gathering force. Her editor suggested removing it. Mara agreed, though she copied the paragraph into a separate folder before deleting it from the chapter. A month later, she used two of its images in an essay about another subject. Asked whether the original paragraph had been bad writing, she said that it had been doing the wrong job in the wrong place.

As the train passed a roof painted with three broad stripes, Nara closed her book and reached for her bag. The station had not yet been announced. Across the aisle, a passenger glanced at his watch and asked whether they were late. Nara did not look at the clock. She pointed instead to a line of poplars coming into view and said, “The platform is just beyond those.” A moment later, the conductor named the stop, and Nara stood ready beside her seat.

The corner of the alcove looked square to Imani. She was ready to cut a shelf that would fit neatly between the two walls. Her uncle, a carpenter, handed her a measuring tool and asked her to check the angle first. “A shelf can leave a gap in a corner that looks perfectly ordinary,” he said. Imani measured the corner before marking the final shape on the board.

The Bridge Bookshop now stands on a busy square, three streets from the river. Above its new doorway hangs the narrow sign that once faced the old stone bridge. When a customer suggested repainting it with a name better suited to the square, the owner pointed to letters from readers who had known the shop for years. Several began, “I hope this still reaches the Bridge.” The owner repaired the sign’s cracked corner but kept both the name and the painted bridge beneath it.

On three quiet mornings, Tomas saw a small bird feeding beneath the orchard’s farthest tree. During the next two mornings, workers used noisy equipment nearby, and he did not see it. After the workers left, he noticed the bird beneath the same tree again. His notebook recorded the times and the activity in the orchard. It did not record where the bird had been while the workers were present.

At the pottery exhibition, visitors gathered around a bowl covered with carved vines. The judges’ notes praised the carving but also recorded that the bowl rocked when set on a flat board. The prize went to an undecorated bowl. Beside its number, the notes mentioned a steady base, an even rim, and a weight comfortable to lift. A visitor concluded that the judges must dislike ornament. Yet the exhibition record showed that the previous winner, chosen by the same judges, had a richly patterned surface. Its entry also received favorable comments about balance and finish. The current winner’s maker said only that she had spent many hours refining the bowl’s form.

Three boxes on the workbench had the same outside length and width. To make each lid sit closely, Belen had trimmed the inside edge of each box by hand and fitted a lid to that particular opening. She marked matching numbers beneath the lids and inside the boxes. After an assistant mixed them up, one lid rested neatly on its numbered box but tilted on another. The assistant measured the outside lengths again and found no difference. Belen pointed to the inner edges, where the small adjustments had been made.

Mira played the old tune briskly while the guests found their seats. Near the window, her grandfather began humming, but his voice entered a little behind each phrase. Mira glanced toward him and repeated the opening more slowly. She kept the same notes, looking up whenever his humming paused. When he joined the next phrase on time, she continued at the slower pace. After he stopped to greet an arriving friend, Mira played a quick run of notes and moved into the next tune without hesitation. No one had asked her to change the program, and the gathering continued around the music.

A small dull rectangle remained near the edge of the museum’s newly polished display panel. Before work began, photographs showed a uniformly dull surface, with no separate rectangle visible. In the work record, a plan outlined the small area and labeled it R; the adjacent polished area was labeled P. The completed checklist listed polishing as finished, with no return visit scheduled to complete it. A later page provided spaces for color readings at R and P after three months and again after six months. Visitors noticed the contrast, although the panel’s central image remained unobstructed and the label discussed only the history of that image.