Text evidence and inference: citing strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what a text says explicitly, and drawing logical inferences that go just beyond the text while staying anchored to it, including answering the two-part evidence-based selected-response items that LEAP English I and II use across literary and informational passages.

What this skill is asking

Text evidence is the specific words a reader points to in order to support an answer, and inference is a conclusion the text supports without stating it outright. Together they are the most heavily tested skill on LEAP English I and II, because the evidence-based selected-response (EBSR) items make them explicit: Part A asks for a reading (often an inference), and Part B asks for the line that proves it. The Louisiana standards open both the literary and informational reading strands with this skill (RL.9-10.1 and RI.9-10.1), asking students to cite strong and thorough textual evidence and to support what they infer. This page covers choosing the strongest, most relevant evidence, drawing inferences that stay anchored to the text, and working the two-part items. The transferable skill is the evidence habit: never make a claim about a text you cannot point to a line for.

Strong evidence and sound inference

The skill has two halves, and they reinforce each other.

The test for a strong inference is whether you can point to the line that produced it. "The narrator is uneasy about the new town" is a sound inference if the text describes him hesitating, comparing it unfavorably to home, or avoiding people; it is a wild guess if nothing on the page supports it. Choosing strong evidence means preferring the most direct support over a line that is merely related. This skill is the engine behind central idea (the detail that supports it), argument (the evidence behind a claim), and the prose responses, where every point needs a quoted line. Louisiana standard RI.9-10.1 (and RL.9-10.1) makes "strong and thorough" evidence the standard.

Working the two-part items

The EBSR format rewards a specific method.

These items appear on both literary and informational passages, which is why this skill sits in the informational module but applies everywhere. The same discipline carries into the Research Simulation Task and Literary Analysis Task, where you quote evidence and explain how it supports your claim, and into the use of text evidence in the written response. Reading with the evidence question always in mind, "what line proves this?", is the single most transferable LEAP reading habit.

Working an evidence-and-inference item

Try this

Q1. What makes an inference strong rather than a guess? [Recall]

• Cue. A strong inference is a conclusion the text supports through specific evidence, going just beyond what is stated while staying anchored to the page. You can point to the line that produced it; a guess has no such support.

Q2. A passage never says a character is poor, but mentions her patched coat, a cold flat, and skipped meals. What can you infer, and how would you prove it? [Short explanation]

• Cue. You can infer she is struggling financially. Prove it with the specific details (the patched coat, the cold flat, the skipped meals), which together support the inference without the text stating it. On a two-part item, one of those details is the Part B answer.