Lesson 11 of 41 in the Test Ninjas TOEFL course: Read an Academic Passage, Reading. Academic writers rarely say “always” or “proven”.
Test Ninjas Research · Updated October 1, 2026
Lesson at a glance
Detail
This lesson
Module
Read an Academic Passage (Reading)
English focus
Hedges and modality (may, might, tends to, suggests, is likely, is thought to) and cause-and-effect chains
Task skill
Choosing inferences the text supports, and pacing a five-question set
Time
About 55 minutes
Access
Included in the TOEFL plan
What this lesson teaches
Academic writers rarely say “always” or “proven”. They say a thing may happen, tends to happen or is thought to be true, and they explain causes as chains: A leads to B, which leads to C. This lesson teaches both.
The English point is how sure a writer is and how one event leads to another. The task skill is choosing inferences that stay inside those limits, and managing your time across a full five-question passage set.
By the end of the lesson, you can
Read hedges such as may, might, tends to, suggests, is likely to, is thought to, most, roughly and need not, and say exactly how certain or how general a claim is.
Follow and write cause-and-effect chains with because (of), due to, since, so, therefore, as a result, lead to, result in, result from and which means that, without reversing or skipping a link.
Choose the inference that goes one step beyond the text at the text’s own strength, and answer all five questions of a passage set within a seven-minute pace target.
What’s inside
Around the 3 teaching cycles below, the lesson opens with a quick check and closes with applied practice, a Check and a debrief. How every course lesson is built.
Teaching cycles in lesson 11
Cycle
Focus
What it teaches
Drills
Cycle 1
English
Hedges: how sure is the writer?
7
Cycle 2
English
Cause-and-effect chains
7
Cycle 3
Task skill
Inference questions and a full set at pace
8
Word bank
The 10 words and phrases this lesson teaches. They come from the real course questions you practice on in the Apply step, so you meet each one again in context.
precipitation noun
rain, snow or hail
The weather app shows a 60 percent chance of precipitation on Saturday, so the club moved its picnic indoors.
Goes with:
annual precipitation; a chance of precipitation
Word family:
precipitate (verb)
intercept verb
to stop something before it reaches its target
The goalkeeper intercepted the pass before it reached the striker.
Goes with:
intercept a pass / a message / a signal
Word family:
interception (noun)
shelter verb
to protect from weather or danger
The bus stop is sheltered by a large oak tree, so it stays cool in summer.
Goes with:
be sheltered from the sun / by a wall
Word family:
shelter (noun); sheltered (adjective)
absorb verb
to take in liquid, heat or light
A thick cotton towel absorbs water much faster than a thin one.
Goes with:
absorb water / heat / information
Word family:
absorption (noun); absorbent (adjective)
condense verb
to change from a gas into a liquid; to make a text shorter
Steam from the shower condenses on the cold bathroom mirror.
Goes with:
steam condenses; condense a report
Word family:
condensation (noun); condensed (adjective)
scale noun
the size or level of something
The campus garden began as a class project, but it now grows vegetables on a much larger scale.
Goes with:
on a large / small / global scale
Word family:
large-scale (adjective); scale up (phrasal verb)
tend to verb phrase (hedge)
to usually happen or behave in a certain way
Evening classes tend to fill up quickly, so register early.
Goes with:
tend to + base verb
Word family:
tendency (noun)
roughly adverb (hedge)
about; not exactly
Roughly half of the club’s members joined this year.
Goes with:
roughly half; roughly twice as many
Word family:
rough (adjective)
moisture noun
a small amount of water in the air or in something
Keep the bread in a sealed bag so that it doesn’t lose its moisture.
Goes with:
absorb / trap / lose moisture
Word family:
moist (adjective); moisturize (verb)
descend verb
to move down
The plane began to descend twenty minutes before landing.
Goes with:
descend a staircase; the plane began to descend
Word family:
descent (noun); ascend (opposite)
The takeaway: An inference goes one step beyond the text and no further: keep the writer’s hedges, follow the chain in order, and reject anything stronger than the evidence.
In the full course
Inference and full passage sets is part of the full TOEFL course
Unlock all 41 lessons with the TOEFL plan, or try one of the free lessons first.
✓All 3 teaching cycles of this lesson, with 22 drills and feedback on every answer
✓The 10-word bank, each word with a recall drill
✓A walk-through, guided practice and a Check on Read an Academic Passage