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Spears: Developing Critical Reading Skills
Developing Critical Reading Skills, 6/e
Deanne Spears, City College of San Francisco
Exercises

Chapter 7 - Exercise 1

Paragraphs for Analysis

1

One especially interesting fact about carnivores is the way modes of dominance vary from one species to another. For instance, packs of wild dogs and wolves, in which both males and females join in the hunt, have only a weak hierarchy, functioning only within each of the sexes (though the pack is usually led by an alpha male). Aggressive encounters in which individual members assert their status, or even attempt to climb the social ladder, are not a prominent part of their social behavior. By contrast, a pride of lions is often a tense social unit, in which the dominant male repels other males who have the effrontery to intrude, and also insists on first place in the meal queue even though the kill will more often have been made by the lionesses. Females have their turn among spotted hyenas, where they are dominant over the males.
--Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin, Origins

Which sentence best expresses the main idea of the paragraph? Sentence
2

In the sentence you chose for question 1 above, write the words that express the topic.
Then write the words that express the controlling idea.
3

The authors' purpose is to
A)prove that not all animals are aggressive.
B)describe some common types of aggression in animals.
C)contrast types of dominance in various species of animals.
D)argue that the desire to establish dominance is innate in all species of animals.
4

The writers' point of view can best be described as
A)personal and familiar.
B)favorable.
C)unfavorable.
D)neutral.
5

The mode of discourse is
A)narration.
B)description.
C)exposition.
D)persuasion.
6

Study your answers for questions 3 and 4 above. The tone of the paragraph is best described as
A)persuasive, manipulative.
B)philosophical, reflective.
C)questioning, inquisitive.
D)detached, objective.








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