topic sentence

Topic Sentence

Ⅰ. Choose the best topic sentence from the group below.

1. A. Picasso was thought to be dead at birth in Malaga on. Oct. 25, 1881.

B. By the age of 25, Picasso was an able and gifted artist.

C. Picasso’s father was a painter named Jose Ruiz Blasco.

D. The full sweep of Picasso’s effect on modern art is difficult to document.

Answer: ___________

2. A. In later adulthood，we begin to come to terms with our own mortality.

B. There are various stages of human development.

C. Adolescence is typically a time of identity crisis.

D. Psychologists report that we pass through various stages of development throughout our

lives.

Answer：

Ⅱ. Read the following paragraph carefully and select the best topic sentence from the four possible answers that follow the paragraph.

1.Topic Sentence：

“Music，”the teacher would tell his pupils，“is a state of being. It is not so much knowledge and know-how .If you want to be good at playing an instrument，let music get hold of you first and this will in turn get hold your muscles and make them produce the music that is now inside you. How can music come out of an instrument if it is not first put into it？And who is to put it there？The composer，the maker of the instrument，the printed score or the player？”

A. If you want to be good at playing an instrument，let music get hold of you first.

B. It is about stages of learning to play an instrument.

C. Only when the player puts the music into the instrument，can music come out of it.

D. Only when the maker of the instrument puts the music into the instrument，can music come out of it.

2. Topic sentence ___________

At one time, transistor radios were not practical, because they were too expensive, Now all of that has changed. With the reduced price of transistors and the cheaper costs of mass production, the transistor radio is cheaper than the old-style tube model. In addition, transistor radios do not heat up like the old tube radios, so they will not wear out as quickly. Also, transistor radios can be made much smaller because transistors are smaller than tubes. Furthermore, transistor radios are more reliable. They have fewer parts, so less can go wrong.

A. Transistor radios are practical and inexpensive.

B. Transistor radios have undergone much improvement.

C. Transistor radios are cheaper than tube radios because of mass production.

D. Transistor radios are better than the old-style tube radios.

Ⅲ. Read the following passages and identify the topic sentence in each by underlining it. 1. The biggest problem in ancient DNA research is getting the DNA in the first place. The favorite material to work with is bone, and a small chunk of it is best. Cells can lie inside the hard

bone structure waiting to be liberated after the calcium has been dissolved away. That’s the easy bit. Getting the DNA out, what little of it that remains is horrendously difficult and many teams have succumbed to pitfalls in the past. The rule is that it has to be done in a clean room better than used to assemble spacecraft to go into deep space, and it has to be done away from any other source of potentially contaminating DNA.

2. Names usually have origins, especially for Indians. Indians with distinctive physical characteristics might be given names such as Big Foot or Crooked Leg. If there had been a big storm on the day of a baby’s birth, the baby might have been named Thundercloud. Grey Eagle, Red-Dog, Big Bear, and Spotted Wolf are examples of Indian names after animals.

3. Many TV commercials imply that a woman’s self-esteem depends on her cleaning ability. In one commercial, we see a woman terribly upset because her guests find spots on her glassware. Countless other commercials blur out the message that a woman will pass muster as a person if her kitchen floor gleams and her toilet bowl is blue. This idiocy must work, because the images of women scrubbing, moping, waxing and smiling keep on coming over the air.

4. As human beings, we are constantly in the stage of change. Our bodies change everyday. Our attitudes are constantly evolving. Something we swore by five years ago is now almost impossible for us to imagine ourselves believing The clothes we wore a few years ago now look strange to us in old photographs. Everything is changing. This is a prediction I can make with absolute certainty.

5. Electric products are closely associated with our lives. Electric alarm clocks and music pouring from our radio awaken us; we operate our roaster, brush our teeth with an electric toothbrush, and shave with an electric razor. We read today’s headlines from newspapers printed on huge electric presses, and we write a letter on our electric typewriter before leaving for work to operate a computer and word processor.

6. There is a popular belief that some particular scientific discoveries or theories, such as the Darwinian theory of evolution, have led to the downfall of religion. It would be foolish to deny that these discoveries have had a great effect in undermining religious dogma. But this account does not at all go to the root of the matter. Religion can probably outlive any scientific discoveries which could be made. It can accommodate itself to them. The root cause of the decay of faith has not been any particular discovery of science, but rather the general spirit of science and certain basic assumptions upon which modern science, from the 17th century onwards, has proceeded.

7. What has happened to the American male？For a long time，he seemed utterly confident in his manhood，sure of his masculine （男性的）role in society，easy and definite in his sense of sexual identity. The frontiersmen（边远地区居民）of James Fenimore Cooper，for example，never had any concern about masculinity；they were men，and it did not occur to them to think twice about it. Even well into the twentieth century，the heroes of Dreiser，of Fitzgerald，of Hemingway remain men. But one begins to detect a new theme emerging in some of these authors，especially in Hemingway：the theme of the male hero increasingly preoccupied with proving his virility（男子气概）to himself. And by mid-century，the male role had plainly lost its rugged clarity of outline. Today men are more and more conscious of maleness not as a fact but as a problem. The ways by which American men affirm their masculinity are uncertain and obscure. There are multiplying signs，indeed，that something has gone badly wrong with the American male’s conception of himself.