Exercise 4
Directions: In the blanks that follow each paragraph, write out what you think is the main idea.
1. In the 1870s, the Welsh explorer Henry Morton Stanley navigated the Congo river under the
sponsorship of King Leopold of Belgium. Wherever he stopped, he made treaties with the African
chiefs he encountered. As a result, when Stanley returned to Europe, King Leopold was able to
take possession of an area eighty times the size of Belgium. Leopold promptly called the area the
Belgium Congo and turned it into his own private goldmine, almost destroying the Congo in the
process. Under Leopold’s rule, the Congolese were faced with impossibly high taxes and forced
into slave labor. Agents of the Belgian government would give each Congolese family a basket to
fill with rubber. If members of the family did not return the basket with the required number of
pounds of rubber, their home would be burned to the ground. Anyone who rebelled would be put
in prison. Meanwhile, Leopold grew enormously rich, squandering his blood money on yachts,
mansions, and mistresses. To keep the Belgian people quiet, he also expended enormous sums
on public works. Nevertheless, public opinion against Leopold and his vicious ways grew
stronger. Ultimately he was forced to give up his stranglehold on the Congo, but not before
millions of people had been imprisoned and thousands had died.
Main Idea:
2. Computerized axial tomography, also known as the CAT scan, was developed in 1971. In its
importance, the development of the CAT scan ranks with Roentgen’s discovery of X-Rays. The
word “tomography” comes from the Greek word “tomos” meaning section or slice. In effect, the
CAT scan allowed doctors to see into the body almost as if layers of it had been sliced away for
better viewing. For the first time, it was possible to view soft tissue inside the skull, chest and
abdomen without resorting to surgery. Thanks to the CAT scan, radiologists could now distinguish
normal from clotted blood. They could also examine the ventricles of the heart without inflicting
pain. Prior to the creation of the CAT scan, it had been necessary to pump air into the ventricles
of the heart, causing the person undergoing the procedure intense pain.
Main Idea: