Finding the Main Idea: the author's message about the topic.
Where are the main ideas found?
It is easy to identify a main idea that is directly
expresd in the text.
•Main ideas are often found at the beginning of paragraphs. The first ntence often explains the
subject being discusd in the passage.
•Main ideas are also found in the concluding ntences of a paragraph. The main idea can be
expresd as a summation of the information in the
写人paragraph as well as a link to the information in the
next paragraph.
The main idea is not always clearly stated. It is
more difficult to identify a main idea when it is
inferred or implied. It can be implied through other words in the paragraph. An implied main idea can be found in veral ways.
•Several ntences in a paragraph can imply the main idea by introducing facts about the topic
before actually stating the topic.
•Implied ideas can be drawn from facts, reasons, or examples that give hints or suggestions
concerning the main idea. The hints will be clues
leading you to discover the main idea in the lected
text.
•Try the passage below to e if you can pick out the main idea.
"To many parents, the infant's crying may be mainly
an irritation, especially if it continues for long periods.
But crying rves important functions for the child as
well as for the parents. For the child, crying helps
improve lung capacity and the respiratory system.
Perhaps more important, the cry rves as a signal of
distress. When babies cry, they indicate that they are
hungry or in pain, and this is important information
for parents."
U the hints below to determine the correct main
idea of this paragraph.
After reading a paragraph ask, "What point is the
author making in this passage?"
Ask the following questions:
•Who - Does this passage discuss a person or group of people?
•When - Does the information contain a reference to time?
•Where - Does the text name a place?•Why - Do you find a reason or explanation for something that happened?
•How - Does this information indicate a method or a theory?
How can I determine if I have lected the correct
main idea of a paragraph?
If you are able to summarize the information in the
passage in your own words,you have absorbed the
correct main idea. To accomplish this goal, try the
steps listed below after reading a short ction of your textbook.
•Write a short summary in your own words about what you have read.
•Does your summary agree with this general topic?
•Does your summary contain the same ideas being expresd by the author?
•Could you write a headline (or textbook subheading) that would express your summary in less than five words?
If you are able to rephra your choice of a topic
ntence into a question and then determine if the
passage answers your question, you have been
successful at lecting a main idea.
Answers: 1 The clouds were dark purple.
2 Thunder becamelouder and louder.
3 The raindrops fellone after another.
The main idea ntence of a paragraph tells what the paragraph is about. The other ntences are details. Read the story and find the main idea.
1. When you take a multiple-choice test, do you ever change your answers? Some scientists think that it is a smart thing to do. They found out that most students who change their answers make the right decision and make better scores on their tests.
The story mainly tells _______
how to study for tests
what scientists think about answers
how to score better on a multiple-choice test
which answers to change on a test
2. Becau lambs are sometimes eaten by coyotes, ranchers may hunt or trap the coyotes. However, killing coyotes may upt nature's balance. Scientists have found a way to protect sheep without killing coyotes. Coyotes are fed lamb meat treated with a drug. When they eat the meat, they get sick. Later, coyotes won't even go near lambs. They'll hunt rabbits instead.
This story mainly tells _______
why coyotes prefer rabbits to lambs
why killing coyotes upts nature's balance
how scientists protect sheep and coyotes
what kind of people don't like coyotes
3. Dolly Madison was the wife of President James Madison. She was quite a brave First Lady. When the White Hou burned down, Dolly rescued important government papers. She also saved the portrait of George Washington that hangs in the East Room today.
This story mainly tells _______
who Dolly Madison's husband was
how the White Hou burned down
about Dolley Madison's courageous acts
where the portrait of George Washington hangs
4. Every year hungry deer do millions of dollars' worth of damage to young pine trees. Scientists in Washington have found a way to protect the trees. They u a substance called lenium. Selenium produces a bad smell when dissolved. A bit of this element is put in the ground near trees. Rain dissolves the lenium, and the trees absorb it. The bad smell keeps the deer away until the trees are fully grown.
This story mainly tells _______
how much damage deer do to trees
how trees can be protected from deer
what lenium is
why deer eat pine trees
硫酸铜化学式5. In real life, rattlesnakes try to avoid people and ldom attack. Most people are bitten only after they step on the snakes. A rattlesnake may not even inject its poison when it bites. In fact, more Americans die from inct stings than from snakebites!
This story mainly tells _______
how rattlesnakes aren't as dangerous as everyone believes
why incts kill people
when rattlesnakes u their poison
正确的煮茶方法how snakes bite
6. Imagine testing glass by throwing
chickens at it? Sometimes fast moving airplanes fly through flocks of birds. If the birds hit the windshield of a plane, the glass could shatter and cau a crash. Airplane manufacturers have made a chicken cannon that fires rubber chickens at glass windshields. If the windshield doesn't break when the rubber chicken hits it, the designers know that the glass can withstand the force of a real crash.
This story mainly tells _______
why birds can be dangerous to airplanes
how a chick cannon tests glass
how big a bird has to be to damage an airplane
how the chicken cannon works
7. The diamond is a hard element that can cut through almost any metal. That is why it is often ud for industrial purpos. Whole diamond stones are t into tools. Dust from crushed diamond stones is ud for coating the edges of tools. Care must be taken when exposing diamonds to extreme heat becau heat can turn them into graphite. Graphite is the soft material ud in the manufacture of lead for pencils.
This story mainly tells _______
how to turn a diamond into a graphite
how diamonds are ud in industry
how diamond dust coats tool edges
when diamonds are ud in pencils
8. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite to help builders, but it was ud for war, which made him feel very guilty about the misu of his invention. He was a rich man, so he t up a $9 million fund. Today the fund is ud to reward people who have improved human life. Nobel Prizes are awarded in six fields, including peace, medicine, and chemistry.
This story mainly tells _______
what the Nobel Prizes are awarded for
why Nobel founded the Nobel Prize fund
how much money was t aside for rewards
what invention Alfred Nobel created
9. The temperature of Antartica once fell to 128 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. In the summertime, temperatures average well below freezing. Most of the land is covered with ice that is up to 2 miles thick. Only a few strong moss and sturdy spiders can live on this big block of ice. Since very little snow or rain falls there, Antartica is a dert.
This story mainly tells _______
about a dert with extremely cold temperatures
which plants and incts live in Antartica
how much snow and rain fall there
how low the temperature once fell
10. The Marines had a problem in World War II. Orders were nt in code, but the enemy kept learning the code. Nothing could be kept cret. Then someone thought the Navajo soldiers could help the Marines. Since very few other people could speak Navajo, this language was ud as a code. No one on the enemy side knew Navajo, so the messages stayed cret.
This story mainly tells _______
how Navajo people kept crets
when the cret code was ud
how the Marines ud Navajo as a code
why the original code had to be changed
11. Sharks have a keen n of hearing and can smell blood from almost 2,000 yards away. Sharks also have a special system of channels in their skin that helps them feel the vibrations of a splashing swimmer. We know that in clear water, sharks can e dinner from about 50 feet away. If you ever spot a shark, always swim away smoothly!
This story mainly tells _______
how well sharks hear
why sharks have poor vision
how sharks n food
when to swim away smoothly
12. Trours are a recent style in the history of fashion. Men wore tights under short, loo pants until the early 1800s when the first real pants for men appeared. Until the 1940s few women wore long pants. During World War II, women factory workers started wearing long pants. The fashion caught on.
The story mainly tells _______
that long pants are a somewhat new fashion
when men stopped wearing pantaloons
who wore tights
why women don't wear trours
13. A scientist believes that millions of animals have died every 26 million years. He thinks that comets are responsible for tho deaths. Comets would explode on impact as they slammed into Earth. Dust from the explosions blocked light and heat from the Sun. Plants and animals on Earth could not withstand such conditions, so they died.
This story mainly tells _______
how often animals died
why comets may come near Earth
where the dust comes from
about a possible cau of animal deaths in the past
小方巾怎么系好看14. The rare Chine panda lives on tender, young bamboo shoots. Most bamboo plants die right after flowering. Without the bamboo the pandas starve. Becau some people fear that the rare pandas may die out, in some places food is given to the hungry animals. Some pandas are airlifted to places where bamboo is still plentiful.
This story mainly tells _______
what the Chine pandas usually eat
how the bamboo plants flower
how people are keeping pandas alive
why pandas sometimes starve to death
15. Bob Geldof talked to the top musical talents of the world and asked them to sing at a concert to r
ai moeny. The stars agreed. Geldof found a stadium, arranged for TV coverage, and t up a trust fund. He said that none of the stars would get special treatment. Everyone would work together. In 1985, the Live Aid concert raid more than $100 million for starving children.
This story mainly tells _______
how Geldof found a stadium
中班个人计划how many musical stars agreed to sing
why people are hungry in Africa
how a concert benefited starving children
16. Can fish climb trees? It sounds like
a fishy story, but mudskippers living in the swamps of Asia really can clim
b trees. After filling their gills with air and water, they climb onto land. Mudskippers u their front fins to move along the ground. Suckers on their fins help them climb trees.
This story mainly tells _______
where mudskippers live
how they fill their gills
how mudskippers can climb trees
龙清泉where mudskippers have suckers
17. Probably the best-known rodeo cowboy in the world is Larry Mahan. Mahan was the national champion six times before he was 30. He was good at every event and was so successful that he had his own plane. When he got too old to be in the rodeo, he didn't stop doing rodeo work. He started a rodeo school.
The story mainly tells _______
where to ride bulls and rope calves
about the most famous rodeo cowboy in the world
how to get rich in the rodeo
where to go to rodeo school异地恋话题
18. The peanut is a humble plant with hundreds of functions. Most peanuts are roasted in their shells and lightly salted. About half the peanuts eaten in the United States are ground into a thick paste called peanut butter. The rich oil made from peanuts is good for frying foods and is ud for oiling machines and making soaps and paint. Even peanut shells are ud to make plastics and to fertilize soil.
This story mainly tells _______
why peanut oil is ud for frying
how much peanut butter is eaten in the United States
about the many us of the peanut
why peanut shells make good fertilizer
19. Tap dancing started in America. It began as folk dancing that had much kicking and stamping. Over time two kinds of dancing developed. In one kind the dancers wore hard shoes and danced very fast. In the other they wore soft shoes and danced slowly and easily. There wasn't really any tap in tap dancing until 1925. That's when someone put metal pieces on the toes and heels of tap shoes.
The story mainly tells _______
how there are two kinds of tap dancing
how tap shoes are made
where some folk dances came from好吃好玩
how tap dancing developed
20. Native Americans dried strips of meat, pounded it into a paste, and then mixed it with fat. Sometimes they added berries and sugar. Then they presd itinto small cakes. They called th cakes pemmmican. Pemmican didn't spoil, and it provided lots of energy for people traveling or goint hunting. Today explorers still carry and eat this food.
This story mainly tells _______
