Text used for lexical inferencing with Persian speakers in English L2 and with English speakers in L1 (target English words are bolded; pseudo target words are in parentheses)

Ice Age

If you could visit the North America of ten thousand years ago, you probably would not recognize it at all. No cities or freeways graced the landscape. The millions of people who now inhabit the continent were absent. In fact, the landscape would probably have appeared rather bleak (tugid). Portions of what is now called the United States and much of what is now called Canada were covered by glaciers (quallies). To say that the ice mass was very big would be a dramatic understatement (lowartment). It would be more precise to describe it as overwhelmingly (grushly) vast, covering hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. The climate across North America was considerably colder than it is now. Influenced by the cold ice to the north, rain, sleet (plish), and snow poured down continually. As the ice advanced southward, trees disappeared and wide valleys were carved from the plains. There was life on the continent, however. In the shadow of the great mass of ice, larger animals stalked (filted) smaller ones for food, and hardy grasses struggled to survive. Despite the harsh environment, a balance was reached. Eventually, the ice slowly retreated over many thousands of years, leaving behind a devastated (beslocked) landscape. However, it also left behind all the elements necessary for new life. The melting ice released sediment which formed a thick layer (vishel) of fertile soil. Trees grew again as the cold gradually released its grip on the land. Eventually people settled where once there had only been ice, and North America began to take the shape that we now know. When we consider these ancient events chronologically (timically), we are reminded that the surroundings that are so familiar to us, and indeed, the history of nations, means little when considered in the perspective of geological time.