than the original. But when the Serpent writes the impostors (tempting wrong
answer choices—see Chapter 7) it knows that including a lot of words from the
original passage might convince an unsuspecting student who recognizes the
words, but doesn’t understand that they are being used in ways that do not
summarize the passage.
Some main idea questions try to disguise themselves using scary analysis-
speak. The two most common disguises are main purpose questions and
author’s point of view questions.
A “main purpose” question might look like this:The main purpose of this paragraph is to
A) address a misconception.
B) justify an opinion.
C) identify a solution.
D) share a memory.On others, the choices will be a little more specific:The main purpose of the passage is to