Finding main idea 2 potx

Many people invest in stocks and bonds, but I think good old-fashioned savings accounts and CDs certificates of deposit are the best way to invest your hard-earned money.. Stocks and bon

Practice 1

Try these questions on the following statements Read

them carefully, and then write F in the blank if the

statement is a fact and O if it is an opinion The answers

appear right after the questions

1 The Academy Awards honor the film

industry

2 The Academy Awards are always fun to

watch

3 More independent films should win

Academy Awards

4 The Academy Awards are an annual

event

5 Best director is the most interesting

Academy Award category

Answers

1 Fact

2 Opinion

3 Opinion

4 Fact

5 Opinion

Practice 2

Now try the same exercise with a complete paragraph Underline the facts and use a highlighter or colored pen

to highlight the opinions Be careful—you may find fact and opinion together in the same sentence When you’ve finished, you can check your answers against the marked passage that follows

– T H E D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N FA C T A N D O P I N I O N –

4 1

There are many different ways to invest your money to provide for a financially secure future Many people invest in stocks and bonds, but I think good old-fashioned savings accounts and CDs (certificates of deposit) are the best way to invest your hard-earned money Stocks and bonds are often risky, and it doesn’t make sense to risk losing the money you’ve worked so hard for True, regular sav-ings accounts and CDs can’t make you a millionaire overnight or provide the high returns some stock investments do But by the same token, savings accounts and CDs are fully insured and provide steady, secure interest on your money That makes a whole lot of cents

How did you do? Was it easy to distinguish between the facts and the opinions? Here’s what your marked-up pas-sage should look like The facts are underlined and the opinions are in boldface type

– T H E D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N FA C T A N D O P I N I O N –

There are many different ways to invest your money to provide for a financially

secure future Many people invest in stocks and bonds, but I think good old-fashioned savings accounts and CDs (certificates of deposit) are the best way

to invest your hard-earned money Stocks and bonds are often risky, and it doesn’t make sense to risk losing the money you’ve worked so hard for True,

regular savings accounts and CDs can’t make you a millionaire overnight or provide the high returns some stock investments do But by the same token, savings accounts and CDs are fully insured and provide steady, secure interest

on your money That makes a whole lot of cents.

Practice 3

To strengthen your ability to distinguish between fact

and opinion, try this Take a fact, such as:

FACT: Wednesday is the fourth day of the week.

Now, turn it into an opinion Make it something

debatable, like this:

OPINION: Wednesday is the longest day of the week.

Here’s another example

FACT: You must be 18 years old to vote in the United

States.

OPINION: The voting age should be lowered to 16 years

of age.

Now you try Suggested answers come after the questions

6 FACT: Healthcare costs have risen over the last

several years.

OPINION:

7 FACT: The 22nd Amendment of the United States

Constitution establishes a two-term limit for the presidency.

OPINION:

8 FACT: More than 58,000 Americans lost their lives

in the Vietnam War.

OPINION:

9 FACT: The Motion Picture Association R

(Restricted) rating requires anyone under

17 to be accompanied by a parent or adult

guardian.

OPINION:

10 FACT: Use of performance-enhancing drugs is

strictly prohibited in both amateur and

professional sports.

OPINION:

Answers

There are, of course, many opinions you could form

from these subjects Here are some possible answers

6 Our government should make healthcare a higher

priority

Companies should give employees several

health-care programs from which to choose

People should stop complaining about

health-care costs

7 Presidents should be allowed to serve for three

terms

Limiting service to two terms will make U.S

pres-idents more effective

Term limits are a very bad idea

8 American soldiers should not have been sent to

Vietnam

Our government did all the right things concern-ing the Vietnam War

9 The Motion Picture Association should not be

able to rate films

The Motion Picture Association ratings should

be taken seriously by all parents

Movie ratings are useless

10 Performance-enhancing drugs should be legal.

Competitive sports would be more interesting to watch if performance-enhancing drugs were legal Performance-enhancing drugs are the worst thing that ever happened to competitive sports

 S u m m a r y

The ability to differentiate between fact and opinion is

a very important skill Like a detective, you need to

know the difference between what people think and what people know, between what people believe to be true and what has been proven to be true Then you will

be able to see whether writers support their opinions, and if they do, how they do it This will allow you to judge for yourself the validity of those opinions

– T H E D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N FA C T A N D O P I N I O N –

4 3

■ Listen carefully to what people say today and try to determine whether they are stating a fact or express-ing an opinion When they offer opinions, do they support them?

■ As you come across facts and opinions today, practice turning them into their opposites; make facts out of opinions and opinions out of facts

Skill Building until Next Time

In order to solve a crime, a detective cannot just get the facts of the case, just discover the motive, just

deci-pher difficult clues, or just distinguish between fact and opinion To be successful, a detective must do all

these things at the same time Similarly, reading really can’t be broken down into these separate tasks Read-ing comprehension comes from employRead-ing all these strategies simultaneously This lesson gives you the oppor-tunity to combine these strategies and take your reading comprehension skills to the next level

L E S S O N

Putting It All Together

L E S S O N S U M M A R Y

This lesson reviews what you learned in Lessons 1–4: getting the facts, finding the main idea, determining what words mean in context, and distinguishing between fact and opinion In this lesson, you’ll get vital practice in using all four skills at once

5

4 5

 R e v i e w : W h a t Yo u ’ v e

L e a r n e d s o F a r

These are the strategies you studied in the past four

lessons:

■ Lesson 1: Find the facts in what you read You

practiced looking for the basic information that

was being conveyed in the paragraphs: the who,

what, when, where, and how

■ Lesson 2: Find the main idea You learned about

topic sentences and how they express an assertion

about the subject of the paragraph You saw how

the main idea must be general enough to

encom-pass all other sentences in the paragraph; it is the

thought that controls the paragraph, and the other

sentences work to support that main idea

■ Lesson 3: Determine the meaning of words from

context You practiced looking for clues to

determine meaning in the words and sentences

surrounding the unfamiliar word or phrase

■ Lesson 4: Distinguish between fact and opinion.

You learned that a fact is something known to be

true, whereas an opinion is something believed to

be true You practiced distinguishing between the two and saw how good paragraphs use facts to support opinions

 P r a c t i c e

In this lesson, you will sharpen your reading compre-hension skills by using all of these strategies at once This will become more natural to you as your reading skills develop

Practice Passage 1

Begin by looking at the following paragraph Remem-ber to read actively; mark up the text as you go Then answer the questions on the next page An example of how to mark up the passage, as well as the answers to the questions, follow

If any of these terms or strategies sound unfamiliar to you, STOP Take a few minutes

to review whatever lesson is unclear – P U T T I N G I T A L L T O G E T H E R –

It is clear that the United States is a nation that needs to eat healthier and slim down One of the most important steps in the right direction would be for school cafeterias to provide healthy, low-fat options for students In every town and city,

an abundance of fast-food restaurants lure teenage customers with fast, inex-pensive, and tasty food, but these foods are typically unhealthy Unfortunately, school cafeterias—in an effort to provide food that is appetizing to young people—mimic fast food menus, often serving items such as burgers and fries, pizza, hot dogs, and fried chicken While these foods do provide some nutritional value, they are relatively high in fat Many of the lunch selections school cafete-rias currently offer could be made healthier with a few simple and inexpensive substitutions Veggie burgers, for example, offered alongside beef burgers, would