Lesson 9 of 41 in the Test Ninjas TOEFL course: Read an Academic Passage, Reading. In Read an Academic Passage, you read a short academic passage (ours run about 200 words, usually in three paragraphs) and answer about five questions on it.
Test Ninjas Research · Updated October 1, 2026
Lesson at a glance
Detail
This lesson
Module
Read an Academic Passage (Reading)
English focus
Topic sentences and the academic linkers that join ideas (whereas, in contrast, however, yet, thus, therefore, as a result)
Task skill
Main idea, why the author mentions something, and how paragraphs relate
Time
About 55 minutes
Access
Included in the TOEFL plan
What this lesson teaches
In Read an Academic Passage, you read a short academic passage (ours run about 200 words, usually in three paragraphs) and answer about five questions on it.
This lesson teaches the English that holds such a passage together: the topic sentence that states each paragraph’s claim, the sentences that support it, and the linkers of contrast and result (whereas, in contrast, however, yet, thus, therefore, as a result) that join ideas.
Then you’ll use that structure for three question types: what the passage is mainly about, why the author mentions a detail, and how one paragraph relates to another.
By the end of the lesson, you can
Find a paragraph’s topic sentence, even when it isn’t the first sentence, and tell it apart from the background, explanation, example, evidence and result sentences that support it.
Read and use linkers of contrast (whereas, in contrast, however, yet, rather than) and result (thus, therefore, as a result) with the right grammar and punctuation, and say what each one tells you about the next idea.
Answer main-idea, purpose-of-mention and paragraph-relationship questions by going to the evidence each question points to, and reject options that are too narrow or that reuse nearby words.
What’s inside
Around the 3 teaching cycles below, the lesson opens with a quick check and closes with applied practice, a Check and a debrief. How every course lesson is built.
Teaching cycles in lesson 9
Cycle
Focus
What it teaches
Drills
Cycle 1
English
Topic sentences and what supports them
7
Cycle 2
English
Linkers of contrast and result
8
Cycle 3
Task skill
Main idea, purpose and paragraph questions
7
Word bank
The 10 words and phrases this lesson teaches. They come from the real course questions you practice on in the Apply step, so you meet each one again in context.
mechanical power noun phrase
energy that makes a machine move and work
A bicycle chain carries mechanical power from the pedals to the back wheel.
to direct water, money or energy along a path or toward a purpose
The school channeled the extra money into new lab equipment.
Goes with:
channel water / money / energy into
Word family:
channel (noun): a TV channel, a water channel
leading source noun phrase
one of the main places something comes from
Rice is a leading source of calories for billions of people in Asia.
Goes with:
a leading / major / main source of + noun
Word family:
lead (verb); leader (noun); leading (adjective)
The takeaway: Find the claim first: every topic sentence for the main idea, the sentence before a detail for its purpose, and the first linker of a paragraph for how it relates.
In the full course
Main ideas and why details are there is part of the full TOEFL course
Unlock all 41 lessons with the TOEFL plan, or try one of the free lessons first.
✓All 3 teaching cycles of this lesson, with 22 drills and feedback on every answer
✓The 10-word bank, each word with a recall drill
✓A walk-through, guided practice and a Check on Read an Academic Passage