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by Ayotunde Bamidele
English Language
Grade 12 / Year 12
Main Idea
Identify and interpreting the main idea in a passage
The main idea is the specific, essential message or argument the author wants you to understand about that subject. Another name for the main idea is central ideal or topic sentence.
Five steps to follow to identify the main idea in a passage
1.Identify the topic.
2.Read the entire passage
3.Annotate as you go, underlining key points or idea you see.
4.At the end, summarise the passage and what you think is arguing.
5.Read the first sentence and the last sentence and look for repeating ideas in your annotations.
Exercise 1
Water is a basic need of man. Without water man, plants and animals cannot survive. Water is made of H20, a chemical compound composed of two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to one oxygen atom. Good Water must colourless and odourless. Good water must not be salty or acidic. It is vital for us to be careful of the water will drink because when we consume polluted water, it can lead various types of diseases.
1.What is the main, or central, idea of the passage?
(a) Without water, man, plants and animals cannot survive.
(b)Water is very essential to living things.
(2) How does the main idea or central idea in develop the passage?
(a) It shows the importance of water to the living creatures.
(b) It shows the importance of drinking good water.
Exercise 2
Read the passage and answer the question that follows
Short-sighted people experience blurred vision while looking at distant objects, such as street signs viewed from inside a car. Conversely, long-sighted people experience blurred vision while looking at nearby objects, such as words on a page. The causes of these two conditions differ as well. Short-sightedness, or myopia, occurs either when a person's eye is too long from back to front or when the cornea (the clear layer at the front of the eye) is too curved. On the other hand, long-sightedness, or hyperopia, results when the eye is too short or when the cornea is not curved enough. Fortunately, corrective lenses can restore normal vision in both cases. As you might expect, these lenses are of opposing types: short-sightedness is improved with a lens that is thinner in the middle and thicker at the edges, while long-sightedness is compensated for with a lens that is thicker in the middle and thinner at the edges.
1.What is the main, or central, idea of the passage?
(a) Short-sightedness and long-sightedness produce contrasting vision problems, have opposite causes and require different types of lenses.
(b) In short-sightedness, the eye may be too long from front to back, while in long-sightedness, the opposite may be true.
Exercise 3
Read the passage and the questions that follow
We cannot survive without our livers, which remove waste products from our blood and produce bile to break down fats, among several other important functions. People with liver failure can be treated with whole-liver transplant surgery, in which a liver is taken from the body of a recently deceased person and placed into the body of a recipient. However, because the number of livers available for this type of transplant is extremely limited, whole-liver transplantation cannot be provided to all of the thousands of people on the waiting list for a liver. Living-donor liver transplants offer a solution. In a living-donor transplant, a person with a healthy liver donates part of their liver to replace the failing liver of another person. Because of the liver's amazing ability to regenerate itself, both the donor and the recipient will grow normal-sized livers in a matter of months. Thanks to living-donor transplantation, numerous lives have been saved.
1.What is the main, or central, idea of the passage?
2.The main, or central, idea of the passage is Living-donor liver transplantation offers a lifesaving alternative to whole-liver transplantation. How does the detail in bold develop the main idea?
(a) It identifies a serious limitation of whole-liver transplants.
(b) It explains why whole-liver transplantation is preferred.
Exercise 4
Read the passage and answer the questions that follow
Strict social conventions governed women's fashion in the early 1900s: women were expected to wear elaborate hairstyles, floor-length gowns and rigid corsets that constricted the waist. However, at the beginning of the 1920s, the evolving role of women spurred dramatic changes in women's fashion, resulting in the iconic flapper style. During World War I, many women had started to work outside the home while men were at war. Towards the end of the war, in 1918, the Representation of the People Act granted women over the age of thirty the right to vote; in 1928, this right was extended to all women aged over twenty-one, in line with the voting rights of men at the time. As the 1920s progressed, more women were participating in politics, going to university and driving cars than in previous decades. In response to these developments, many young women dressed in the style of the flapper. Flappers wore short haircuts and loose dresses that de-emphasised their femininity; they also wore low-heeled shoes that were more comfortable for walking and dancing. In the 1920s, the flapper became the embodiment of the new freethinking and independent woman.
(2) The main, or central, idea of the passage is Flapper fashion emerged because women experienced greater political, intellectual and social freedoms in the 1920s. How does the detail in bold develop the main idea?