Guides, The Watson Glaser
How inferences actually work.
Updated 7 November 2026. 3 minute read.
In This Guide
An inference question gives you a short passage and a statement that might follow from it. You choose one of five answers: true, probably true, insufficient data, probably false or false. Each one means something exact, and most of the work is telling neighbours apart.
The Passage Is All You Have
Pearson describes this part of the test as rating how likely inferences are to be true, based on the information given. So work from the passage. Moot’s questions follow this rule: take the facts in it as true, even if you know better, and ask how far they carry the statement. General knowledge is fine; anything only a specialist would know is not.
Moot gives each answer an exact meaning. If the facts prove the statement beyond reasonable doubt, it’s true. If they make it more likely than not, but don’t prove it, it’s probably true. Probably false and false work the same way in the other direction.
In 2025, a City law firm moved its first-round interviews online. Of the candidates it interviewed from outside London, 52% reached the second round, against 31% in 2024, when every first-round interview was held in its office. The firm made no other change to how it chose candidates.
Statement Holding first-round interviews online helped candidates from outside London reach the second round.
Answer Probably true
it points one way, it doesn’t prove it
The rise came in the year of the move, and the firm changed nothing else about how it chose, so the passage leans towards the move as the reason. It doesn’t prove it: that year’s candidates from outside London might simply have been stronger. More likely than not, but not proved.
Why “Probably” Is the Hard Part
If the passage states the statement, or its numbers prove it, the answer is true or false. Don’t hedge a fact. If the passage fits the statement but something else could explain it too, the answer is probably true, not true.
One check settles most of these: could the statement be wrong while every sentence in the passage stays true? If it couldn’t, it’s true. If it could, but the passage still leans towards it, it’s probably true.
Insufficient Data, and When to Use It
Choose insufficient data when nothing in the passage points either way. The statement may sound likely, or like something a law firm would do, but if no sentence leans towards it or against it, there’s nothing to rate it on.
Take “The firm interviewed more candidates in 2025 than in 2024” against the passage above. It gives two percentages and no numbers of candidates, so the answer is insufficient data, however likely the statement sounds.
How Long to Spend on Each
Pearson’s page gives the test as 40 items, 30 to 40 minutes timed, and the University of Law says a 40-question test usually gives you 30 minutes. That’s 45 to 60 seconds a question on average, across every section, not only inferences, and 45 if your test gives you 30 minutes.
So read the statement first, find the sentence it depends on, then decide. Do only the sums the statement needs. If two answers still look right, choose the one the passage supports more strongly and move on.
Sources, checked 7 November 2026: Pearson’s Watson Glaser page and the University of Law’s guide to the test.