Main Ideas Quiz
The main idea in a
passage is the most important key to good comprehension. To find it, you ask yourself, “What is the
main point the author is trying to express?”
The main idea may appear at any place within the passage. Identify the number of each main idea
sentence.
A-Sentence 1 C-Sentence 3 E-Sentence 5
B-Sentence 2 D-Sentence 4
Passage 1: Many ancient cultures believed that
garlic had magical healing qualities, and it was used for health purposes
thousands of years ago in
Passage 2: Police officers complain that many of the criminals they arrest end up very soon on the streets to commit crimes again. Judges argue that because of the technicalities of the law, they are forced to free many defendants, some of whom may be guilty as charged. Government officials lament that they don’t have the funds or space to build new prisons. And many citizens charge that the police, the judges, or the government officials are not doing their jobs well. Clearly, the way the huge problem of crime is being handled angers and frustrates many segments of our society.
Passage 3: A century ago, medical practice left much to be desired. In the late 1800s, surgeons still operated with bare hands, wearing the same clothes they had worn on the street. Their shoes carried into the surgery room the debris of the streets and hospital corridors. Spectators were often permitted to observe operations, gathering around the patient within touching distance of the incision. Surgeons used surgical dressings made from pressed sawdust, a waste product from the floors of sawmills. Surgical instruments were washed in soapy water, but not heat-sterilized or chemically disinfected. The mortality rate following operations in many hospitals was as high as 90 percent.
Passage 4: When we speak of a “close friend,” we usually mean an intimate friend, not a friend who is standing close by. However, according to researchers who study human behavior, there are in fact four “distance zones” in human interaction. Intimate distance is the closest zone, eighteen inches or less. This is the zone of making love, for instance, and also of physical confrontations (“in your face!”). Second is personal distance, eighteen inches to four feet, which is used for everyday conversations with friends. Then there is social distance, four to seven feet, which we use for most interactions with strangers, such as buying something in a store. The fourth zone is public distance, twelve feet or more. A public speaker or a singer at a concert is usually at least twelve feet from the nearest audience members.
Passage 5: Have you ever wondered why products come in the colors they do? For instance, why is toothpaste often green or blue and shampoo often golden-yellow? Manufacturers pick the colors that are associated with qualities consumers value in certain products. For example, it’s known that blue symbolizes purity to most people and that green is refreshing. These are both desirable qualities in toothpastes. Manufacturers also know that golden-yellow symbolizes richness (as in real gold or egg yolks), so they frequently choose this color for shampoos and cream rinses—products in which consumers value richness. Baby products, such as baby lotion, are often tinted pink because that is a color commonly associated with softness and gentleness—the very qualities consumers want for a baby’s care.
Passage 6: One writer spent nine hundred hours over the course of eight years watching the action in singles bars and learning about male-female relationships. Although men may think of themselves as the aggressors, says this writer, it is really women who call the shots when a courtship is beginning. He has observed that women are the ones who pick a potential mate out of the crowd. They position themselves near the man they’ve selected and, with a glance or a smile, invite him to make contact. Similarly, as conversation begins, the woman initiates each increasingly intimate stage. Her continuing eye contact, moving closer, and touching the man all signal her permission for him to make further advances. In most cases, the woman’s signals are so subtle that the man is only subconsciously aware of them.
Passage 7: In everyday advertising, one observes many obvious attempts to package and sell products and ideas (toothpaste, aspirin, presidential candidates) through clever influence tactics. Many people claim that such blatant attempts at persuasion are so pitifully obvious that they are not much affected by them. Nevertheless, the sales of Benson & Hedges 100s cigarettes increased sevenfold during a four-year period of heavy advertising. The Mattel Toy Company increased company size twenty-four fold after it began to advertise extensively on television. Grape-Nuts, a venerable but nearly forgotten cereal, experienced a sudden 30 percent increase in sales when a well-known natural foods enthusiast began plugging this rather bland cereal. And there are many other advertising success stories as well. It appears that tremendous numbers of consumers are influenced by advertising, despite their claims to the contrary.
Passage 8: Pedal error occurs when the driver of an automobile mistakenly presses down on the accelerator instead of the brake pedal. This leads to unintended acceleration, which, in turn, can frequently result in an accident. It seems as though stepping on the wrong pedal would be an unlikely occurrence. However, an analysis of pedal error shows that this mistake is easier to make than you might think. A driver sometimes turns his upper body a little to the left at the same moment that he moves his right foot toward the brake pedal. The driver might turn his upper body to the right to look in the left side mirror or to reach for his seatbelt. Or, if he is in reverse, he might look over his left shoulder to make sure that it is safe to back up. This turning of the upper body could cause his right foot to move slightly to the right. As he unconsciously moves his foot to the right, he may end up hitting the accelerator rather than the brake. Instead of stopping and remaining stationary, the car in fact begins to accelerate. Believing that his foot is on the brake, the driver presses his foot down harder in an effort to stop the car. Obviously this action only makes the problem worse. Pedal error is more likely to occur if the drive has just gotten into the car and started it, if the driver is unfamiliar with the car, or if the driver is shorter than average.
Passage 9: Criminal and civil cases, the two types of court cases, differ in significant ways. Criminal cases involve the enforcement of criminal laws, that is, laws against acts such as murder and robbery. The case is brought by a government—a state or the federal government—against someone who is charged with committing a crime. The government becomes the prosecutor and the accused is the defendant. The defendant will be found “guilty” or “not guilty”, usually by a jury. A civil case involves a legal dispute between individuals and organizations, such as businesses. One party to the case, the plaintiff, has filed a complaint against the other party, the defendant. Civil lawsuits arise, for example, over personal injuries (as in automobile accidents), disagreements about contracts, and—more and more often these days—medical malpractice. There is no verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty” in a civil case; instead, a jury, a judge, or a panel of judges will decide in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant.
Passage 3: The American author Mark Twain is famous
for the humor in his writing. His
novels, stories, and essays have brought laughter to millions. However, Twain’s own life in the sixteen
years leading up to his death in 1910 was marked more by sorrow than humor, as
he faced several personal tragedies. He
had invested a significant amount of money in the development of a mechanical
typesetting machine. In 1894 the project
failed, and his investment was lost. In
addition, a publishing company that he had begun ten years earlier went
bankrupt. So at the age of 59, this
once-rich man went on a two-year worldwide lecture tour in order to earn
money. He took his wife with him on the
tour but left his three daughters at home in
Passage 10: Social scientists have begun to study leaders of work groups. Observed in action, group leaders are seen to adopt one of three different styles of leadership. One type, the democratic leader, tends to emphasize participation by the individual group members as equals. Such a leader seeks the opinions of the members so that decisions are made by the group as a whole. In contrast, the authoritarian leader tends to exert direct control over the group members, procedures, and decision-making. Authoritarian leaders typically assign tasks to group members. The third type of leader, the “nonleader”, exerts no control or direction at all. This style can be appropriate in a social group but tends to make a work group ineffective. As a result, when the designated head of the group is a nonleader, another member may emerge as the actual leader, trying to keep the group on course.
Passage 11: When labor-management disputes are reported on news broadcasts, listeners sometimes think that mediation and arbitration are simply two interchangeable words for the same thing. But mediation and arbitration are very different procedures, with different outcomes, though both involve the use of a neutral third party. In mediation, the third party (called a mediator) is brought in to assist in the negotiations so that the opponents will keep talking to each other. Mediators can only make suggestions about how to resolve a dispute; neither side is obliged to accept them. In arbitration, on the other hand, the third party—the arbitrator—is called in to settle the issue, and the arbitrator’s decision is final and binding on both sides.
Passage 12: Just as there are rules of the road for drivers of cars, trucks, and buses, there are “rules of the sidewalk” for pedestrians. The sociologist Erving Goffman points out that, for one thing, pedestrians on a sidewalk keep to their right, relative to an imaginary dividing line in the middle of the sidewalk. Thus people sort themselves into lanes going in opposite directions, as on a vehicular roadway. And people who are walking slowly often tend to stay closer to the buildings, while to their left, in a “passing lane”, are the people who are moving more quickly. Also, like drivers, pedestrians scan the route ahead so that they can swerve around obstacles—say, a puddle or a hole in the walkway—and so that they will not collide with anyone else. If a head-on collision seems possible, pedestrians will make eye contact and maneuver to keep out of each other’s way. Goffman notes one obvious difference though: rules of the road are often codified in laws and regulations whereas rules of the sidewalk are informal social customs.
Passage 14: The early days of World War I saw the
line between patriotism and intolerance blur and disappear. As war hysteria mounted, volunteerism
blossomed into an orgy of “100 percent Americanism.” Immigrants, aliens, radicals, and pacifists
came under suspicion as an urge to force conformity took hold. German Americans became special targets. Local influenza epidemics were blamed on
German spies contaminating water supplies.
In
Passage 15: A biological virus can attach itself to a human host cell and take charge, using the cell’s functions to make the substances needed to form new virus particles, which then leave that cell and spread, repeating the process in other cells. Biological viruses cause many diseases—some minor, like the common cold; but some life- threatening, like polio or AIDS. Biological viruses may kill the host cell or make the cell itself malignant, or the virus may set off a dangerously violent response in the immune system. Biological viruses reproduce and spread in various ways, and they may be very hard to treat because they can take forms that the immune system cannot detect. Computer viruses are programs designed to attach themselves to ordinary software, take it over, and then reproduce and spread. A computer virus can do its damage by attacking the startup program, at which point antivirus devices cannot yet detect it; or by attacking the operating system; or by attacking applications such as databases. In any case, the virus can distort or kill computer memory. A computer virus, as the name implies, is very much like a biological virus.
Passage 16: Recent research has provided techniques
for significantly improving short-term and long-term memory. Short-term memory can be improved by rote
rehearsal and chunking. Rote rehearsal
involves repeatedly going over something in your head, and chunking is a method
of organizing long lists into chunks of seven or fewer. Long-term memory can be improved by
organizing material for meaningful association.
The more associations you can make between new information and information
already known, the more likely it is you’ll remember the new information. Another organizing technique is mnemonics, or
the use of memory-aiding formulas. An
example of a mnemonic device is using the acronym HOMES as a clue to recall the
names of the five Great Lakes: Huron,