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

a
? If not, cross 
a
out. Do
all of the sentences support choice 
b
? Choice 
c
?
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F I N D I N G T H E I M P L I E D M A I N I D E A
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1 2 0

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The correct answer is 
b
, “Mr. Miller may have left
his car door unlocked the day the radio was stolen.”
How can you tell? Because this is the only idea that all
of the sentences in the neighbor’s statement support.
You know that Mr. Miller often doesn’t lock his car
doors; you also know that he often forgets thing. The
combination makes it likely that Mr. Miller left his car
door unlocked on the day his car radio was stolen.
Practice Passage 3
Now look at a paragraph in which the 
language
the
writer uses is what enables you to determine meaning.
Here is a description of Coach Lerner, a college bas-
ketball coach, written by one of his players. Read the
paragraph carefully and see if you can determine the
implied main idea of the paragraph.
Coach Lerner, my basketball coach, is six feet ten
inches tall with a voice that booms like a foghorn and
the haircut of a drill sergeant. Every morning, he
marches onto the basketball court at precisely 8:00
and dominates the gymnasium for the next three
hours. He barks orders at us the entire time and
expects that we will respond like troops on a battle-
field. And if we fail to obey his commands, he makes
us spend another 45 minutes under his rule.
Before you decide on the implied main idea, list
your observations. What did you notice about the lan-
guage in this paragraph? An example is provided to get
you started.
Your Observations:
Example:
I noticed that Coach Lerner’s voice is
compared to a foghorn.