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Grade 7 English Language Arts — Main idea and supporting detail

Find what a passage is mainly about, tell a supporting detail apart from the main idea, and separate what a passage says from what it does not.

Name: ________________________

  1. 1.Sort each sentence by whether it is a main idea or a supporting detail.

    Groups: Main idea · Supporting detail

    • Even a short story teaches you new words.
    • A book can take you to a country you have never seen.
    • They cost nothing at all to run.
    • They take up very little space to park.
    • Reading widens what you know.
    • Bicycles are a good way to get about a town.

  2. 2.Match each question to the answer the passage about the well gives.

    • How long had the well been dry?
    • Who cleared it?
    • When did they work on it?
    • How long before it filled again?
    • What else started working again?
    • The hand pumps in the lanes
    • Thirty years
    • After school
    • A group of students
    • Two monsoons

  3. 3.In the bee passage, which detail supports the idea that bees matter to farmers?

    • a) When bee numbers fall, far less fruit forms.
    • b) Bees drink nectar.
    • c) Pollen comes in grains.
    • d) Bees make honey.

  4. 4.Answer in one word. According to the bee passage, what sticks to a bee's body as it moves between flowers?

  5. 5.Read this passage. "Honey bees do far more than make honey. As they move from flower to flower drinking nectar, grains of pollen stick to their bodies and are carried to the next flower. This is how many plants make seeds. Nearly a third of the food we eat depends on insects doing this work. When bee numbers fall, farmers notice it first: the fruit trees blossom as usual, but far less fruit forms." What is the main idea?

    • a) Farmers grow many kinds of fruit.
    • b) Bees drink nectar from flowers.
    • c) Bees matter to us for far more than the honey they make.
    • d) Fruit trees blossom every year.

  6. 6.Answer in one word. In the passage about the well, in which season did the hand pumps run dry every year?

  7. 7.Which of these is a supporting detail from the passage about the well, rather than its main point?

    • a) Its steps were cracked and its walls were furred with weeds.
    • b) Clearing the well changed the village.
    • c) The village got its water back.
    • d) Students cleared the well and the water came back.

  8. 8.Which sentence in a paragraph gives the main idea?

    • a) The longest sentence
    • b) The last sentence
    • c) The sentence with the most facts in it
    • d) The sentence that all the others explain or support

Answer key — Grade 7 English Language Arts — Main idea and supporting detail

  1. 1. Bicycles are a good way to get about a town. → Main idea; They cost nothing at all to run. → Supporting detail; They take up very little space to park. → Supporting detail; Reading widens what you know. → Main idea; A book can take you to a country you have never seen. → Supporting detail; Even a short story teaches you new words. → Supporting detail
  2. 2. How long had the well been dry? → Thirty years; Who cleared it? → A group of students; When did they work on it? → After school; How long before it filled again? → Two monsoons; What else started working again? → The hand pumps in the lanes
  3. 3. a) When bee numbers fall, far less fruit forms.
  4. 4. pollen
  5. 5. c) Bees matter to us for far more than the honey they make.
  6. 6. summer
  7. 7. a) Its steps were cracked and its walls were furred with weeds.
  8. 8. d) The sentence that all the others explain or support