Reading 3

Identifying main and supporting ideas

Reading 3

Identifying main and supporting ideas

Understanding paragraph structure

1 Reading this title and subheading and think what does the text will be about.

a What is blame and what is the different between fault and blame ？

b In what context is this passage going to discuss

blame? c Try to guess the meanings of the words and phrases in bold in the first paragraph. The truth is, blame can also be a powerful constructive force. For starters, it can be an effective teaching tool, helping people to avoid repeating their mistakes. When used judiciously –and sparingly – blame can also prod people to put forth their best efforts, while maintaining both their confidence and their focus on goals. Indeed, blame can have a very helpful effect when it ’s used for the right reasons. The key, then, is the way in which blame is managed, which can influence how people make decisions and perform their jobs, and ultimately affect the culture and character of an organization. How to Win the Blame Game

People are often more concerned about avoiding blame than achieving results. But

blame can actually be a positive force in the workplace. The trick, says one former

Major League baseball pitcher, is knowing how to use it.

When a new product flops in the marketplace or a new recruit turns out to be a poor

worker, blaming somebody for the mistake seems a bit rude. So people talk politely

around the blunder, saying things like ‘sales targets were missed ’or ‘mistakes

occurred ’

, as if the error happened all by itself. Indeed, at many companies, blame is never even mentioned. At other organizations, people are all too quick to point fingers , leaving employees more concerned about avoiding blame than about

achieving results. Such organizations have given blame a bad name.

Topic New idea that may be developed

in next paragraph

Introduction

to the topic Main idea: two opposing attitudes to blame Example that

illustrates main idea

a b

c

Reading 3

Identifying main and supporting ideas

d Which words and phrases in this paragraph did you hav

e to guess the meaning of?

e What would you expect to read about in the third paragraph?

6 Take two minutes to read the third paragraph and then underline the main idea, two points which support the main idea（the supporting points）and any examples （use different coloured pens to do this）.

Baseball managers spend most of their time and energy managing things that go wrong. Thus, baseball provides an excellent microcosm in which to study blame because mistakes and failures are a routine part of every game. In a typical game, managers, coaches and players can easily make more than 100 bad decisions- and still end up winning. Even very successful pitchers average more than two bad pitches per batter and if a batter bats well 40% of the time but badly the other 60% he is having a miraculous season. Thus, if managers and coaches got upset about every mistake, they would go mad by the end of the season.

IELTS Reading test practice Multiple choice

How to approach multiple choice questions?

7 Take five minutes to answer these questions, which are based on the three paragraphs in How to Win the Blame Game.

Choose the correct letter,A,B,C or D.

1 In the first paragraph, one of the writer’s main points is that companies tend to

A perform better when blame is avoided.

B respond differently to errors in the workplace.

C associate blame with poor sales figures.

D blame employees rather than managers for things that go wrong.

2 In the second paragraph, the writer claims that one of the positive features of blame is that

A everyone feels the same about it.

B people can learn how to deal with it.

C it can build confidence in less secure employees.

D it can encourage employees to work hard.

3 Why dose the writer choose to refer to baseball?

A It is a well-known American sport.

B The managers dislike blaming their players.

C Error is an important aspect of the game.

D Even good players have bad days.

Reading 3

Identifying main and supporting ideas Extracting key information

8 Read the following passage and then answer the questions.

a What is the main idea in the first paragraph?

b What is the structure the passage overall?

c Which words in the secon

d paragraph help you identify th

e supporting points?

d How easy would it b

e to make a mental summary o

f the passage? Why ?

Going Digital

Electronic libraries will make today’s Internet pale by comparison. But building them will not

be easy.

All over the word, libraries have begun the Herculean task of making faithful digital copies of

the books, images and recordings that preserves the intellectual effort of humankind. For armchair scholars, the work promises to bring such a wealth of information to the desktop that the present Internet may seem amateurish in retrospect.

Librarians see three clear benefits to going digital. First, it helps them preserve rare and fragile objects without denying access to those who wish to study them. The British Library, for example, holds the only medieval manuscript of Beowulf in London. Only qualified scholars were allowed to see it until Kevin S.Kiernan of the University of Kentucky scanned the ancient manuscript with three different light sources （revealing details not normally apparent to the naked eye ）and put the images up on the Internet for anyone to peruse. Tokyo’s National Diet Library is similarly creating detailed digital photographs of 1,236 woodblock prints, scrolls and other materials it considers national treasures s o that researchers can s crutinize them without handling the originals.

A second benefit is convenience. Once books are converted to digital form, patrons can retrieve them in seconds rather than minutes. Several people can simultaneously read the same book or view the same picture. Clerks are spared the chore of reshelving. And libraries could conceivably use the Internet to lend their virtual collections to those who are unable to visit in person.

The third advantage of electronic copies is that they occupy millimeters of space on a magnetic disk rather than metres on a shelf. Expanding library buildings is increasingly costly. The University of California at Berkeley recently spent $46 million on an underground addition to house 1.5 million books –an average cost of $30 per volume. The price of disk storage, in contrast, has fallen to about $2 per 300-page publication and continues drop.

Reading 3

Identifying main and supporting ideas

IELTS Reading test practice TRUE/ FALSE/ NOT GIVEN

How to approach the task

■

■

■

■

9 Take eight minutes to answer questions 1-7.

Do the following statements agree with the information in the passage?

TURE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is on information on this

1 Digital libraries could have a more professional image than the Internet.

2 Only experts are permitted to view the scanned version of Beowulf.

3 The woodblock prints in Tokyo have been damaged by researchers.

4 Fewer staff will be required in digital libraries.

5 People may be able to borrow digital materials from the library.

6 Digital libraries will occupy more space than ordinary libraries.

7 The cost of newly published books will fall.

IELTS Reading test practice Note completion

10 Read the passage below and on the next page and underline what you think are the main ideas and supporting points.

The First Cyber Criminals

‘Cyber crime’sounds like a very new type of crime. In fact, it has been around since the 1970s-before the personal computer was invented, when computers far less powerful than today’s games consoles filled entire rooms and were monitored by technicians.

The first cyber crimes were carried out across telephone lines, by a group of electronic enthusiasts known as ‘phone phreakers’. Having studied the US telephone system, they realized that it used a series of musical tones to connect calls. They found they could imitate those tones, and steal free phone calls, by creating small musical devices called ‘blue boxes’. One famous ‘phreaker’, John Draper, even discovered that using a whistle given away inside a cereal box could do the same job as a blue box.

Reading 3

Identifying main and supporting ideas Cyber crime centred on the telephone for many years, until the first computer-to-conputer cyber crime took place in the 1980s. ‘Hacking’, as it has since been referred to, gained new public visibility after the popular 1983 film Wargames, in which a hacker breaks into a US military computer and saves the world. Many hackers later said this was their inspiration.

It was the arrival of the Internet that was eventually to make cyber crime a big issue. When millions

of home and business computer users began to visit the Internet in the early to mid 1990s, few were thinking about the dangers of cyber crime or about security and so it seemed only a matter of time before banks became the target for hackers.

In 1994 a group of hackers broke into US bank Citibank’s computers and stole $10 million. This

was later nearly all recovered. With the rise of the Internet, credit cards became the tools of cyber criminals: Kevin Mitnick was arrested for stealing 20,000 credit card numbers over the Net in 1995. this and other credit card crime prompted credit card companies to consider ways they could make cards more secure.

11 Take seven minutes to complete the notes 1-7 below.

Complete the notes below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/ OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Cyber Crime

First cyber criminals: called 1 ________________ ( 1970s)

Nature of crime: made free calls by copying 2 _______________

Computer crime: began in 3 __________________

Crime known as: 4 ___________________

Promoted by hit movie: 5 ___________________( 1983)

Internet crime: initially unexpected, but quickly focused on 6______________ Current concern: 7 _________________ fraud