Advanced English Reading and Comprehension

26 practice makes perfect Advanced English Reading and Comprehension

Reading strategies

A good summary contains the main ideas and supporting details of a reading text. Think of a

main idea as the big picture: what the text or paragraph is about. You can usually ind the main

idea of a paragraph in its topic sentence. Supporting details provide the little picture, and they

support, prove, or develop the main idea. Details can be facts, igures and statistics,

or examples.

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EXERCISE

Identifying main ideas and supporting detailsIdentify the main ideas

of paragraphs 5, 9, and 10 of the reading text. For each of the main ideas, provide two

supporting details from the text. As an example, this information has already been

provided for paragraph 1. Note: You should write a summary in your own words, rather

than copy directly from the text. In this exercise, however, it is necessary only to identify

the supporting details.

Paragraph 1—Main idea International scientists undertake to map the complete

human genome and the U.S. government provides financial support.

Supporting details

1. Goal: to identify all 30,000 to 40,000 genes belonging to the human genome
   and to map the location of the three billion base pairs of DNA


2. Purpose: to lead to the understanding of genetic diseases, the creation of
   effective pharmaceuticals and medical treatments, and the alleviation and
   prevention of human suffering due to genetically transmitted diseases
   Paragraph 5—Main idea

Supporting details

1.

2.

Paragraph 9—Main idea

Supporting details

1.