The companion set to Workshop 3. Twelve real-style questions on main idea and inference, played one at a time. Predict the answer before you look, then check yourself against the four traps.
Before you read the choices, answer the question in your own words. Then find the choice that matches your prediction. Three of the four choices are built to fool you, usually in one of these ways:
Word Echo. Repeats words from the passage but misses the point.
Opposite Direction. Says the reverse of what the text says.
Too Extreme. Overreaches with "all," "only," or "never."
True but Irrelevant. A real detail, but not what the question asks.
Question 1 of 12
Main IdeaWarm-up
The axolotl is a salamander that lives in the lakes near Mexico City. Unlike most salamanders, it keeps its larval features for its whole life, including its feathery external gills. Even as an adult, it stays in the water rather than moving onto land. Scientists study the axolotl because it can regrow lost limbs, and even parts of its heart and brain, without scarring.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
The takeaway: Every sentence in the passage describes an unusual trait of the axolotl: it keeps larval features, stays in the water as an adult, and can regrow limbs and organs. Choice C captures this overall point that the axolotl is unusual in several ways.
InferenceWarm-up
A recent survey of a valley's songbirds found that every species nesting in the valley builds its nest within two meters of a flowing stream. Biologists also confirmed that the marsh warbler nests only in that same valley and nowhere else. It follows that the marsh warbler ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
The takeaway: The passage states two facts: every species nesting in the valley nests within two meters of a stream, and the marsh warbler nests in that valley. Combining these, the marsh warbler must nest within two meters of a stream. Choice B states exactly this and nothing more.
Main IdeaWarm-up
Beekeepers have long noticed that honeybees dance inside the hive. In the 1940s, the researcher Karl von Frisch showed that these movements are not random. A bee that has found flowers performs a looping "waggle dance" whose angle points other bees toward the food and whose length signals how far away it is. In this way, a single bee can share the location of a meal with the whole colony.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
The takeaway: The passage builds to the point that the waggle dance is a way for a bee to communicate the location of food to the colony. The angle, the length, and the closing sentence all support this central claim.
InferenceWarm-up
An archivist catalogued a private library and noted that each of its handwritten manuscripts bears a small wax seal in the lower left corner. She also recorded that the volume known as the Harwell Codex is one of the manuscripts in this library. Therefore, the Harwell Codex ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
The takeaway: Each manuscript in the library bears a wax seal in the lower left corner, and the Harwell Codex is one of those manuscripts. So it must bear such a seal. Choice C states exactly that.
Main IdeaMedium
The Sahara Desert was not always dry. Studying ancient lake beds and rock paintings, geologists have found that between about 11,000 and 5,000 years ago the region held grasslands, lakes, and herds of animals. People fished and herded cattle there. A slow shift in Earth's orbit gradually reduced the rains, and over centuries the green landscape gave way to the sand we see today.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
The takeaway: The passage explains that the Sahara was once green and later became a desert as a shift in Earth's orbit reduced rainfall. Choice D captures this whole arc of change over time.
InferenceWarm-up
A theater company's records show that no performance is scheduled on any day when the main stage is being repainted. The stage manager's log confirms that the main stage was being repainted throughout the first week of March. This suggests that during that week ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
The takeaway: No performance is scheduled on any day the stage is being repainted, and the stage was repainted throughout the first week of March, so no performance was scheduled that week. Choice A states exactly this.
Main IdeaMedium
Coral reefs cover a tiny fraction of the ocean floor, yet they shelter about a quarter of all marine species. The corals themselves are tiny animals that build hard skeletons, forming vast structures over thousands of years. Fish, crabs, and countless other creatures find food and hiding places among the branches. Because so much ocean life depends on them, damage to reefs can ripple outward to many other species.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
The takeaway: The passage stresses that reefs, though small in area, support a huge share of marine life, so their fate affects many species. Choice A captures this point about their outsized ecological importance.
InferenceMedium
A linguist studying a set of clay tablets noted that any tablet written in the older script uses a distinctive triangular symbol for the number ten, whereas tablets in the newer script never use that symbol. She then examined an unlabeled tablet and found it employed the triangular symbol for ten. On this basis she inferred that the tablet ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
The takeaway: The triangular symbol appears in older-script tablets and never in newer-script ones. The unlabeled tablet uses that symbol, so it cannot be in the newer script and must be in the older script. Choice B follows.
Main IdeaChallenge
Researchers once assumed that a forest's trees compete only for sunlight and water. More recent work complicates that picture. Underground, threads of fungi link the roots of many trees into a shared network. Through these threads, older trees can pass sugars to shaded seedlings, and warning signals about insect attacks travel from tree to tree. The forest, it turns out, behaves less like a crowd of rivals than like a connected system.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
The takeaway: The passage revises an old assumption: rather than mere rivals, trees are linked by fungal networks that share resources and signals, so the forest acts like a connected system. Choice A states this central claim.
InferenceMedium
Geologists studying a coastal cliff observed that a particular gray ash layer appears in the rock only where a volcanic eruption deposited it, and such eruptions have occurred in the region only during periods of low sea level. When they examined a newly exposed section of the cliff, they found the gray ash layer present. They therefore concluded that the section formed during ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
The takeaway: The ash layer appears only where an eruption deposited it, and eruptions occur only during low sea level. Finding the ash layer means an eruption deposited it, which means sea level was low. So the section formed during a period of low sea level. Choice D combines both premises.
Main IdeaChallenge
When a violinist draws a bow across a string, the string itself moves only a little air. The full, warm sound a listener hears comes mostly from the instrument's wooden body. The bridge carries the string's vibrations to the top plate, which flexes and pushes on a much larger volume of air. The curved back and the air inside the hollow body add their own resonances. A string stretched on a rigid frame, by contrast, is nearly silent.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
The takeaway: Across its sentences the passage builds one point: the string alone makes little sound, and it is the violin's wooden body that produces most of the sound the listener hears. Choice D states this idea, which is implied rather than stated in a single sentence.
InferenceChallenge
An ecologist observed that a certain lake's trout feed on mayfly larvae only when the water is colder than fifteen degrees, and that the mayfly larvae themselves are present in the lake in every month of the year. During a midsummer survey, when the water measured eighteen degrees, she examined the stomach contents of several trout. She reasoned that, whatever else the trout had eaten, they ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
The takeaway: The trout feed on mayfly larvae only when the water is colder than fifteen degrees. The water was eighteen degrees, so the condition for feeding on larvae was not met, meaning the trout had not fed on mayfly larvae. The larvae's year-round presence is a trap that tempts the opposite conclusion. Choice A states the entailed result.
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