Skill 2 Choose the Best Summary Statement of the Main Idea

In the previous skill, you saw that on the ASVAB or other tests you may be asked to identify which sentence in a reading passage best reflects the main idea of that passage. But sometimes on tests you might be asked to think about the total “big picture” idea that is being conveyed, and then select a sentence from several choices that best conveys that main idea. None of the choices will be a sentence from the original passage.

Let’s look at the same paragraph we studied in the previous skill. On the ASVAB, you might get a question that is phrased as shown below.

Read the paragraph and answer the question.

If you want to get rid of your old computer, options include recycling, reselling, ...

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