Reading Comprehension: Main Idea, Detail, Inference, and Author's Intent
What this domain tests
Reading Comprehension on this exam asks you to treat a passage as a whole, not just decode individual sentences. Four question types recur: main idea, detail, inference, and author's intent. Passages often use expository or reflective prose, and contrast markers plus abstract nouns usually carry the argument.
Core rules
- Main idea: identify topic + claim. Choose an answer that covers the whole passage, not one paragraph. Check opening and closing paragraphs and repeated key terms.
- Detail: scan for paraphrases, not identical words. Watch negation, concession, and small numbers.
- Inference: accept only what follows from the text. A statement can be true in the real world yet unsupported by the passage.
- Author's intent: use tone verbs such as argue, illustrate, warn, criticize and notice rhetorical questions. Markers like although, yet, however often reveal the main point.
Worked example
Passage: Although the town rebuilt its shopping street after the flood, many young families moved away, and the new arcade now serves mostly weekend visitors. Question: What is the main idea? Reasoning: Although makes the rebuilding a concession; the main clause and the and-clause report the outcome. The best answer is that rebuilding did not restore the town's residential life. Flood damage was severe is background, and visitors spend money is a detail, not the claim.
Traps
Selecting a true but minor detail; accepting extreme wording (all, never, only) that the passage does not support; mistaking an example for the author's claim; overlooking EXCEPT or NOT in the question stem.