Reading Comprehension Success in 20 Minutes a Day, 3rd Edition

13.
The main idea of the passage is that
a.
companies should reimburse employees for
work-related courses.
b.
both companies and employees would benefit
from unconditional tuition reimbursement.
c.
companies should require their employees to
take college courses.
Answers
1.
b.
The idea that employees will become more valu-
able if they take courses is stated in the fourth
paragraph: “Thus . . . the employer will have a
more sophisticated, more intelligent, and therefore
more valuable and productive employee.”
2.
a.
The idea that employees will become more loyal
is stated in the third paragraph: “A company that
puts out funds to pay for the education of its
employees will get its money back by having
employees stay with the company longer. It will
reduce employee turnover because even employ-
ees who don’t take advantage of the tuition reim-
bursement program will be more loyal . . .”
3.
a.
The sentence is a fact; you could verify it by sur-
veying companies to find out about their tuition
reimbursement policies.
4.
b.
The sentence is an opinion; it shows how the
author feels about the policy.
5.
b, c.
The author lists the ways companies would
benefit by having unconditional tuition reim-
bursement in order of importance from least to
most important. The author also shows the posi-
tive effects unconditional reimbursement would
have on the company.
6.
c.
There is no 
I
or 
you
here; the writer doesn’t
refer directly to herself or to the reader. Instead,
everything is spoken of in the third person.
7.
c.
The writer most likely uses the third-person
point of view because it is objective, and her argu-
ment is more likely to be taken seriously. If she
used the first person, readers might think she was
an employee who wanted her employer to pay for
her tuition, and she wouldn’t be taken seriously.