Name: _____________________________

Summary and Main Idea Worksheet 1

Directions: Read each passage and…

1. Create a title for the passage related to the main idea.

2. Accurately summarize the text.
3. Your summary must describe all key ideas from the text.
4. Do not include opinions or personal info in your
summary.
5. Highlight or underline key ideas in each passage.

MATTER
Have you ever looked at a pot of boiling water? The water
is a liquid, but the bubbles are a gas. And consider this:
have you ever seen a half-frozen ice cube with water
trapped in ice pockets? Here we have a solid (ice) that is
surrounding a liquid (water). From these observations you
should understand that water is most commonly found in
one of three physical forms. Solid, liquid, and gas are the
three basic states of matter we usually observe on Earth.
Matter is any physical substance found on Earth. It makes
up the air, the ocean, your body, your desk and anything
else you can see, and some things you can’t! But how
exactly does water exist in different forms?
1. Main idea related title for the passage:

2. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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PHASES OF MATTER
Solid, liquid, and gas are the names of different physical forms, or phases, of matter.
These are called states of matter. Substances can exist as a solid, liquid or gas.
There is another form of matter called plasma but we are not going to focus on this.
Solids are made up of closely packed molecules and maintain a rigid form without a
container. Solids are incompressible, meaning that they cannot be “squeezed” down
to a smaller size. Liquids are made of closely associated molecules and will flow to
conform to the shape of a container. Liquids are mostly incompressible. Gases are
made of mostly unassociated molecules and will expand to fill any container. Gases
are compressible, meaning that their volume can be reduced by applying force.
Solids are formed when the attractive forces between atoms are greater than the
energy causing them to move apart. The molecules are locked in position near each
other. Sometimes they are in very fixed, structured positions; this is referred to as a
crystalline solid. Examples are salt, diamond, quartz and ice. Other times, solids
have not structure called amorphous solids. Examples are wax and many foods like
cotton candy. In the solid stage atoms cannot move past one another. This does not
mean there is no motion, each atom still has energy and must move. They vibrate,
think of small children sitting in a chair and told not to get up so they squirm around
in place. When the temperature increases the vibration increases.
3. Main idea related title for the passage:

4. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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LIQUIDS & GAS
When atoms start to move more freely they are forming a liquid. In liquids atoms
can move past one another and bump into each other. This is why liquids can “flow”
to take the shape of their container but they still remain relatively close to each
other. As the temperature of a liquid (and motion of the atoms) increased, the
amount of movement of individual atoms increases. When they start bumping into
each other because of increasing thermal energy some particles escape and these
atoms have entered into the gas phase. Molecules in the gas phase have little
interaction with each other, beyond occasionally bumping into one another. Gases
have a low density. If the temperature of a gas increases the movement of the gas
particles increases. Heat=Energy=Motion
5. Main idea related title for the passage:

6. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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PHYSICAL & CHEMICAL PROPERTIES
How can we tell one type of matter from another? All matter has properties that
make it distinguishable from other kinds of matter. A property describes how matter
looks, feels or interacts with other matter. Scientists look at two different aspects of
a substance-its physical properties and its chemical properties. A physical property
is anything we can observe without changing the identity of the substance we are
looking at. Some of the more common physical properties are color, odor, hardness
and texture. A chemical property describes the way a substance may change, or
react, to form other substances. Chemical properties are very different from
physical properties because chemical properties describe the interaction of
substances with other substances. Example: A piece of a paper burns and turns into
a black material. After the flame goes out, you can no longer burn the black
substance. This is because the chemical properties have been changed. Rusting and
flammability are two examples.
7. Main idea related title for the passage:

8. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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