Ideas of the Passage

Fitrotul Maulidiyah

It is very common for reading passages in the Reading Comprehension section of the TOEFL test to have questions about the overall ideas

in the passage.

The most common type of question

Main Idea

TopicTitle

Subject

SKILL 1

Answer Main Idea Questions Correctly

Reading Passage on TOEFL Test

Questions about the

main idea of a passage

Being worded in a variety of ways

Topic, subject, title, primary idea, main idea

Questions about main idea of a passage

Asking the primary point the author is trying to get across in the passage

Being generally written in a traditionally organized manner

Finding the main idea from the topic sentence = 1st paragraph

If a passage consists of only ONE paragraph

The beginning of that

paragraph to determine the main idea

GROUP 1

Main Idea

How intelligence differs from reasoning in Dewey’s works.

If a passage consists of MORE THAN ONE paragraph

The beginning of EACH paragraph to determine the main idea

GROUP 2

Main Idea

Two nitrogen processes

Read the 1st line of each paragraph

Look for a common theme or idea in the first lines

Skim over the rest of the passage to find the topic

sentence

Eliminate definitely wrong

answers

How to answer the questions?

SKILL 2

Recognize the

Organization of Ideas

Organization of ideas

You will be able to determine how the ideas in

one paragraph (or paragraphs) relate to the ideas in another paragraph

(or paragraphs).

How does each paragraph relate to each other?

Provides examples to support the ideas in the first paragraph

Precedes the ideas in the first paragraph

Outlines the effect of the idea in the first paragraph

Refutes the idea in the first paragraph

GROUP 3