chapter 3
33
Developing Reading
Comprehension Skills
OVERVIEW
• Finding main ideas and supporting details
• Skimming for specific information
• Making inferences
• Understanding advertisements
• How thoughts are related
• Understanding contemporary reading passages
• Reading history textbooks
• Summing it up
FINDING MAIN IDEAS AND SUPPORTING DETAILS
The most valuable reading comprehension skill is probably the ability to
determine the most important thing an author is saying. Read the following
paragraph to see if you can distinguish between essential and nonessential
information and between the main idea and the supporting details.
Sample Reading Passage 1
Left-handed people suffer more from stress than their
right-handed peers, according to a study of 1,100 adults
by University of Michigan researchers. As a result, they
smoke and drink more. Fifty-five percent of the lefties
smoked, whereas fewer than half of the righties smoked.
Furthermore, the lefties consumed more alcohol per
year than their right-handed counterparts.
The main idea is _______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Notice that in this paragraph, it was the first sentence that told you the main
idea. This sentence, called a “topic sentence,” usually appears at the beginning.
Sometimes, however, the paragraph’s main idea is expressed in the last sen-

(B) Make a fist and place the thumb side against the person’s stomach.
(C) Grasp your fist with your other hand and press into the abdo-
men with a quick upward thrust.
(D) Repeat if necessary.
Now, read the following paragraph to determine what the main idea means to a passage.
Sample Reading Passage 3
What’s the best way for you, as an employer, to deliver bad
news to an employee? First of all, you have to break the news
yourself, face to face with the recipient. You can’t write memos
to tell people they will not get raises this year or that they have
made an error or are not performing as well as expected. You
(5)
(5)
03_TOEFL Reading Ch 3,31-91 7/29/06, 12:0034
Chapter 3: Developing Reading Comprehension Skills 35
www.petersons.com
have to show them how you feel about the matter and that you
are personally sorry and sympathize with them. If you indicate
that you are ready to listen to their reactions to your bad news,
you will undoubtedly save yourself from their wrath. Above all,
you must be ready for an emotional reaction from the recipient
of bad news. Give people time to digest your news and to control
the emotion they invariably feel. Although it is never easy to
break bad news, if you follow these steps, you will at least soften
the blow.
1. The author’s main idea is that
(A) bad news is hard to impart
(B) all employers have to criticize their employees
(C) there are ways of softening the impact of bad news
(D) people respond emotionally to bad news

reports that yogurt eaters over the years have lived longer and
healthier lives than non-yogurt eaters. However, what proof is
there that rural life and its ensuing greater physical activity
rather than consumption of yogurt are not the cause of these
people’s longevity?
1. The author’s intent is to show that
(A) yogurt is good for your health
(B) eating yogurt will prolong your life
(C) yogurt is the same as milk
(D) there is no proof that yogurt increases longevity
2. The paragraph advises the reader that
(A) yogurt will help a person to live to be 100
(B) the author has little faith in yogurt lovers’ claims
(C) yogurt may be harmful to dieters and health food lovers
(D) people in rural areas eat a lot of yogurt
Answers
1. The correct answer is (D).
2. The correct answer is (B).
Sample Reading Passage 5
Most of us believe that the death of a spouse often leads to the
premature death of the bereft partner. After twelve years of
study involving 4,000 widows and widowers, Johns Hopkins
University researchers have perceived that it is the husbands,
and not the wives, whose lives are shortened by the loss of their
spouses. However, the study indicates that widowers who
remarry enjoy greater longevity than men the same age who
continue to live with their first wives.
1. The main idea is that
(A) men live longer than their wives
(B) widowers live longer than single men

when, why.
Here are the opening paragraphs of some news items. Scan them for information about
who, what, where, when, and why.
Sample Reading Passage 6
A. Mexican conservationists are wondering how to get rid of killer piranhas
that were found yesterday in a lake near Puebla.
Who ___________________________________________________________
What __________________________________________________________
Where _________________________________________________________
When __________________________________________________________
Why ___________________________________________________________
03_TOEFL Reading Ch 3,31-91 7/29/06, 12:0037
38 PART III: TOEFL Reading Review
www.petersons.com
B. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission today designated four
commodities exchanges to trade options on futures contracts, as part of a
three-year pilot program beginning October 1.
Who ___________________________________________________________
What __________________________________________________________
Where _________________________________________________________
When __________________________________________________________
Why ___________________________________________________________
C. On October 14, workers at the Lenin shipyard in the Baltic seaport of
Gdansk put down their tools in protest against poor working conditions.
Who ___________________________________________________________
What __________________________________________________________
Where _________________________________________________________
When __________________________________________________________
Why ___________________________________________________________
Answers

today
to trade options on Futures’ contracts
workers
put down their tools
in Baltic seaport of Gdansk
October 14
to protest against poor working conditions
NOTE
Titles are often useful
indicators of what the
article is about.
03_TOEFL Reading Ch 3,31-91 7/29/06, 12:0038
Chapter 3: Developing Reading Comprehension Skills 39
www.petersons.com
When you have found the who, what, where, when, and why information in the beginning
of a news story, decide whether or not to continue reading. If you do read the rest of the
article, skim it by skipping to places where words are capitalized or where there are
numbers, or to any points that particularly interest you. Most importantly, don’t get lost
in all the words; practice reading only what you need to read within a selection.
MAKING INFERENCES
There are two basic kinds of reading comprehension.
1. When you are able to use the author’s words to answer a comprehension
question, it is your factual comprehension that is being tested.
2. Sometimes, however, the information is not directly stated, so you must
infer a meaning using your own reasoning and logic. This type of under-
standing is sometimes referred to as inferential comprehension.
Imagine that you are at a friend’s house. It is 11:00 p.m. and your host starts to look at
his watch and yawn out loud. Although he never actually tells you to leave, he implies
and you infer that it is time for you to go home.
Daily newspapers publish advice columns for everything from successful vegetable