Better Reading Part 2: First Paragraphs and Topic Sentences

The first paragraphs of a passage is the most important and from it you can predict a lot about the whole passage.It usually contains the topic sentence for the whole passage (not just for the first paragraph), what the topic means exactly, the author's opinion (if he has any), and clues about the organization of the passage, which means you'll see which part to go to for specific information.

Let's practice some reading skills by looking at the first paragraphs of some IELTS reading passages. Before you read the words after the paragraph, try to guess the topic sentence and its definition. Here's the first one:

The Spectacular Eruption of Mount St. Helens

The eruption in May 1980 of Mount St. Helens, Washington State, astounded the world with its violence. A gigantic explosion tore much of the volcano's summit to fragments; the energy released was equal to that of 500 of the nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

The first IELTS reading passage is always the easiest.

From the title and opening sentence, the topic for the coming passage is clearly The violent eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1991. And the definition for eruption is clearly given by the following words and phrases: violence, gigantic explosion, tear something to fragments, energy, nuclear bombs. There is nothing about the author's opinion or the structure of the article.

Here's a more difficult opening paragraph:

People and Organisations: The Selection Issue

In 1991, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, a record 48,000 British companies went out of business. When businesses fail, the post-mortem analysis is traditionally undertaken by accountants and market strategists. Unarguably organisations do fail because of undercapitalisation, poor financial management, adverse market conditions etc. Yet, conversely, organisations with sound financial backing, good product ideas and market acumen often underperform and fail to meet shareholders' expectations. The complexity, degree and sustainment of organisational performance requires an explanation which goes beyond the balance sheet and the "paper conversion" of financial inputs into profit making outputs. A more complete explanation of "what went wrong" necessarily must consider the essence of what an organisation actually is and that one of the financial inputs, the most important and often the most expensive, is people.

This one is not as easy, but the topic sentence is again the first one :

“In 1991, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, a record 48,000 British companies went out of business"

But of course the article won't necessarily be about 1991. So the topic of the whole passage is going to be: Companies going out of business.

What does going out of business mean? If you have never seen the phrase before, you can see its meaning from the next sentence businesses fail

The paragraph then gives many reasons for businesses failing, but don't worry about them for now (you might not be asked anything about them anyway).

At the end we have the word, people emphasized in italics and given as one of the reasons why companies fail. So the rest of the reading passage is probably going to be about the effect people have on failing companies. The title also tells us that the passage is about companies and people

One more opening paragraph:

The Roll-film Revolution

The introduction of the dry plate process brought with it many advantages. Not only was it much more convenient, so that the photographer no longer needed to prepare his material in advance, but its much greater sensitivity made possible a new generation of cameras. Instantaneous exposures had been possible before, but only with some difficulty and with special equipment and conditions. Now, exposures short enough to permit the camera to be held in the hand were easily achieved. As well as fitting shutters and viewfinders to their conventional stand cameras, manufacturers began to construct smaller cameras intended specifically for hand use.

This is a good example, because we will see that although we don't necessarily know what roll film is or what the dry plate process is, we can still more or less understand the passage, answer the questions and score a high mark.

Skimming the paragraph tells us that these two things are obviously something about cameras and the film used in cameras to catch the light. The words revolution and introduction imply change. So obviously the passage is going to be about some kind of development or developments in photography.