Reading · Original worked example
Choose a main idea that covers the whole passage
Distinguish a passage's main idea from an interesting detail or an overly broad claim using two original short passages and answer-by-answer reasoning.
Before you begin
Useful foundation: Summarize what each sentence or paragraph contributes.
Your goal: Select the central point that accounts for the passage as a whole without adding an unsupported conclusion.
The topic names what a passage discusses. The main idea says what the passage communicates about that topic. Test a candidate against the beginning, middle, and end rather than choosing the most memorable detail.
Work through an example
At first, the museum's labels listed only dates and materials. Staff then added short accounts of how the objects had been used. Visitors began discussing not just when an object was made but whose daily routines it had shaped. The objects stayed the same; the conversations around them changed.
- Identify the topic: museum labels and visitors' responses to them.
- Identify the change: labels gained information about how objects were used.
- Connect the effect to that change: visitors began discussing people's daily lives. The final sentence emphasizes changed conversations.
- A supported main idea is that adding human context to labels changed how visitors discussed the collection. A claim about increased ticket sales would introduce information the passage never provides.
Try a question yourself
A school garden began with identical planting schedules for every bed. Students soon noticed that shaded beds stayed damp longer than sunny ones. They started checking each bed's soil before watering. The schedule became a starting point rather than a rule, and students recorded their observations to guide future decisions.
Choose an answer, then check your reasoning. This public practice is not saved.
Read all answer explanations
Shaded garden beds can remain damp longer than sunny beds.: This is an important supporting detail, but it does not cover the students' change in decision-making or their later records.
All gardens should eliminate watering schedules.: The passage describes one garden and keeps the schedule as a starting point. It does not call for eliminating schedules everywhere.
Students used observations to adapt a fixed garden routine. — correct answer: The initial schedule, observations about soil, revised watering decisions, and recordkeeping all support this central idea.
The school garden grew more vegetables after students changed its routine.: The passage does not report a harvest or compare vegetable yields. This adds an outcome that might sound plausible but is not stated.
What to do next
Summarize each paragraph in a few words, then write one sentence connecting them. Compare that sentence with the answer choices.
Revisit the idea in a week using a different question. Repeating this example can help you understand it, but remembering its answer is not evidence of learning a new problem.
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