What is the main idea of Priyanka's presentation?
Listen to an Oral Presentation · ELPAC Grades 6–8 listening. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.
A presentation on an academic topic, followed by three or four questions.
Listen to Priyanka give her presentation to the class. Then answer the questions.
Light Pollution
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Show transcript
Priyanka: Good morning. My name is Priyanka, and my presentation is about light pollution.
Priyanka: About eighty percent of people in the United States now live somewhere the Milky Way cannot be seen at night. The cause is not one enormous light. It is thousands of ordinary ones, on parking lots and porches and signs, that throw their light upward instead of down.
Priyanka: The effects reach well past astronomy. Migrating birds navigate by the night sky, and a brightly lit city can pull a whole flock miles off its route. Sea turtle hatchlings crawl toward the brightest horizon, which for millions of years was the ocean.
Priyanka: Here is the encouraging part. Unlike smoke or plastic, this pollution disappears the moment the light is switched off or pointed down. A shielded fixture can fix a whole street in one night.
The question
Choose the best answer.
What is the main idea of Priyanka's presentation?
- Most people in the United States can no longer see the Milky Way at night.
- Migrating birds can be pulled off course by the lights of a city.
- Light pollution comes from ordinary lights, and changing those lights undoes it.Correct answer
- Sea turtle hatchlings crawl toward the brightest horizon they can see.
Why “Light pollution comes from ordinary lights, and changing those lights undoes it.” is correct
Main-idea questions ask which statement the whole talk is built to support, and every wrong answer here is a true statement Priyanka actually makes. Her structure gives the answer away: the cause is ordinary lights aimed upward, the effects reach past astronomy, and the fix is to switch a light off or point it down. A choice that covers only one of those three parts is a detail, not the main idea.
Why the other answers are wrong
- Most people in the United States can no longer see the Milky Way at night. — This is the opening statistic, used to show the scale of the problem before she explains its cause.
- Migrating birds can be pulled off course by the lights of a city. — The birds are one of two examples she gives of effects beyond astronomy.
- Sea turtle hatchlings crawl toward the brightest horizon they can see. — The sea turtles are the second example, and she spends a single sentence on them.
Practice more of this
More listening practice for Grades 6–8, or see the ELPAC practice test for grades 6–8. For other grades, see free ELPAC practice tests by grade.
This is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the California Department of Education or the official ELPAC program. All questions here are original practice material written to match the published task formats.