Exercise 5
Directions: Read each paragraph below and select the sentence which best expresses the topic
sentence or main idea. For each topic sentence, circle its topic and underline its key words.
Also notice some of the ways the writers have developed each paragraph through personal
experience, examples, facts, or reasons.
Paragraph #1
…..
1
The best case I ever came across of a compulsive-obsessive person was one of my old
elementary school teachers.
2
She was a person who loved to save things.
3
She had all the Time
magazines that she had ever read since 1950, stacked according to weeks.
4
Each stack was
bound by blue string.
5
She even saved her old toothbrushes.
6
She had her collection of
toothbrushes tucked away in her hall closet.
7
She was also a person who liked to label
everything.
8
She’d spend hours putting labels on each drawer, shelf, and closet in the classroom.
9
Once someone went into the closet and noticed a shelf with bright orange paper, and there, on
the front of the shelf, was a label identifying it as “Bright Orange Paper.”
Paragraph #2
.....
1
There are several ways for people to view money.
2
First is the person whose dollars
disappear in mere moments.
3
To this person, a savings account is like a straitjacket.
4
The
spender lives only in the present and can't plan ahead financially.
5
Next is the individual who
hoards pennies like rubies.
6
The hoarder may be wealthy but remains unable to relish the
pleasures that money makes possible.
7
This person lives in the future, a future that never arrives.
8
More common is the person who likes to save but can occasionally spend without anxiety.
9
This person is rooted in the present but prepared for days to come.
Paragraph #3
.....
1
Basketball is appealing for several reasons.
2
Basketball is fast, exciting, and unpredictable; a
large lead can be lost in a single minute, and many games are decided by a single point.
3
Because
the basketball team has few members, I can become acquainted with each player's personality.
4
I
also love watching a player leap gracefully to the basket and dunk the ball.
5
But most of all, I
love basketball because it gives me a chance to yell at the refs.
Paragraph #4
.....
1
E-mail can suck up much of a person's free time.
2
According to 2001 surveys in MacWorld
and PC Week magazines, eight out of ten people spend more than one hour daily on e-mail.
3
In
fact, one of my friends, a computer aficionado, tells me that she has spent up to four hours per
day reading and sending e-mail messages.
4
One reason for the time drain is that every day tons
of bulk e-mail or spam arrives in most e-mail accounts and must be deleted.
5
In addition,
wading through old e-mails for important instructions or information can also involve hours.
6
I
myself have found that e-mailing friends and family is so easy that I tend to write many
unnecessary messages to many more people than I would write otherwise, spending free time
with e-mail rather than going to the movies or reading a book.