0 00:00:08,889 --> 00:00:14,349 An important part of understanding reading texts in the IELTS Reading Test is distinguishing 1 00:00:14,349 --> 00:00:18,430 main ideas from the supporting details. 2 00:00:18,430 --> 00:00:23,279 The main idea of a paragraph is usually written at the beginning of the paragraph in the topic 3 00:00:23,279 --> 00:00:29,279 sentence. It's important that you learn to recognise topic sentences so that you can 4 00:00:29,279 --> 00:00:33,870 identify the main ideas of the paragraph. 5 00:00:33,870 --> 00:00:40,290 Paragraphs also contain supporting details. By this, we mean explanations, descriptions 6 00:00:40,290 --> 00:00:47,370 or examples to support the main idea or make the main idea clearer. The sentences which 7 00:00:47,370 --> 00:00:51,170 give supporting detail are usually after the topic sentence. 8 00:00:51,170 --> 00:00:55,609 Let’s take a look at an example. 9 00:00:55,609 --> 00:01:01,829 Can you identify the main idea, which is contained in the topic sentence, and can you identity 10 00:01:01,829 --> 00:01:09,420 the supporting detail? 11 00:01:09,420 --> 00:01:14,930 So here you can see that the topic sentence is highlighted in green and contains the main 12 00:01:14,930 --> 00:01:20,799 idea of the paragraph, which in this case, is about the first key-operated lock, while 13 00:01:20,799 --> 00:01:26,180 the sentences in the remainder of the paragraph, as highlighted in yellow, are the supporting 14 00:01:26,180 --> 00:01:28,869 details. 15 00:01:28,869 --> 00:01:34,470 In the IELTS Reading Test, you're often required to match headings to paragraphs. Because the 16 00:01:34,470 --> 00:01:40,009 topic sentence in a paragraph contains the main idea, topic sentences can help you to 17 00:01:40,009 --> 00:01:45,509 decide on headings for paragraphs. You'll learn more about this kind of task later on, 18 00:01:45,509 --> 00:01:50,820 but for now, let’s take another look at the paragraph. 19 00:01:50,820 --> 00:01:59,320 Read the topic sentence in this example again. In this case a suitable heading would be 'The 20 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:04,060 original security device', as shown. 21 00:02:04,060 --> 00:02:07,630 Now you can practise finding the main ideas in texts.