Central Idea: Make Inferences

Front

What is the central idea of the passage?
Thomas Edison’s life span is known as “The age of Edison.” If it wasn’t for Thomas Edison, we might not have electric lights, telephones, movie cameras, or computers! Think of all the ways these great products affect our lives today. Edison held over 1,000 patents and received dozens of awards during his lifetime for his inventions and contributions to science.

Back

Thomas Edison was an important inventor

Front

What is the central idea of the passage? The law was not exactly fair in the Middle Ages in Europe. Back then, you could blame someone in your town for committing a crime. The “criminal” could then challenge you to a fight to prove his guilt or innocence. If you lost the fight, you were charged as a liar and the criminal was believed to be innocent. If you won, the criminal was believed to be guilty.

Back

Laws were unfair in the Middle Ages

Front

What is the central idea of the passage? In training to be a knight, a person was expected to study hard and learn good manners. They were taught to play musical instruments, sing, and recite poetry. They also studied reading, writing, geometry, and strategy games. Another knight would then teach the person to shoot a bow and arrow, fight with a sword, and ride a horse. To say the least, knights had a well-rounded education.

Back

Knights learned a variety of subjects while training

Front

What is the central idea of the passage? In 1981, a new television channel was introduced to showcase musicians performing their songs in music videos. This channel was called MTV, or Music Television. Since the channel first went on the air, viewership has increased, and the channel has expanded to countries all over the world. Today, MTV not only shows music videos, but a variety of other television programming as well.

Back

MTV has been a ground-breaking TV channel

Front

What is the central idea of the passage?
William Shakespeare was a very prolific writer. By the time of his death at 52 years of age, he had written 37 plays, 154 poems, and two long, narrative poems. No other writer of his time produced as many high-quality works as Shakespeare. Among his most popular works are Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. His words have inspired many writers to this day!

Back

Shakespeare was a talented writer

Front

What is the central idea of the passage? Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. Many beautiful three-dimensional creations are made with this art. Starting with only one square of paper, you can fold and fold and fold, until you’ve created amazing models. With practice, you can learn to make abstract designs or recognizable animals such as cranes (a type of bird) or even dinosaurs.

Back

Origami is an interesting and beautiful art form

Front

What is a topic?

Back

the general subject of a text

Front

What is the main idea of the paragraph?
We often let others know what we are thinking without using words. The name that we give for this kind of communication is body language. Body language includes gestures, facial expressions, and posture. Body language does not always mean the same thing to everyone.

Back

We use body language to communicate with others.

Front

What does the author want you to learn about the passage? Do you ever wonder how you taste things? You owe your sense of taste to your taste buds. We have 9,000 taste buds just on the tongue alone. There are also taste buds on the roof of your mouth. You even have taste buds on the back of your throat.

Back

Taste buds are found in different places.

Front

What does the author believe about gorillas?

Back

Gorillas are misunderstood as vicious animals.