They are very careful to arrange paragraphs in such a way that their readers can identify meaning quickly. Usually one sentence, the topic sentence, contains the main idea in capsule form, and the rest of the paragraph elaborates on the idea with details or examples. Although the topic sentence can appear any place in the paragraph, it most commonly appears close to the beginning or end of the paragraph. Deductive paragraphs begin with the main idea.
Inductive paragraphs save the main idea for the end.
This exercise shows you examples of the two kinds of paragraphs and then give you a chance to identify a few on your own. This is the type of memory tested in schools by multiple-choice or matching questions. In these questions, you are presented with the stem information which can have many different associations. You are then presented with several alternatives and your task is to match these alternatives which you bring into Short Term Memory from Sensory Memory with the correct answer that you previously learned and stored in your Long Term Memory, at the same time ignoring the choices that don't match. Recognition is generally more sensitive to revealing information in your Long Term Memory than is recall because many memory items can be recognized which couldn't possibly be reproduced from memory without Short Term memory cues.