Topic Sentence and Concluding Sentence
Read each paragraph carefully. Answer the questions after each paragraph. Write your answers in the text box. Use complete sentences for your answers. After you finish the exercise, click on Email to email your answers to your instructor, or click on Print to print your work.

Each sentence is numbered at the beginning of the sentence.

Paragraph 1
(1) Whales, one of nature's largest mammals, can be divided into two categories. (2) Baleen whales are one kind of whale. (3) Baleen whales have a type of keratin called baleen that hangs in their mouths and sifts food from the ocean waters. (4) Baleen whales can consume up to 9,000 pounds of fish a day. (5) The toothed whale is the other type of whale. (6) The toothed whales have teeth instead of baleen. (7) They gnaw and chew on their meals. (8) Like the baleen whales, the toothed whales consume large portions of food each day. (9) Though many varieties of whales exist in our oceans, they are all categorized according to whether they have baleen or teeth inside their gigantic mouths.

1. Which sentence is the topic sentence? Is it an effective topic sentence? Why or why not?



2. Which sentence is the concluding sentence? Does it echo the topic sentence? Explain.




Paragraph 2:
(1) The letters WWW do not stand for the "Wide World of Wrestling" as hooked wrestling fans may guess. (2) Nor do they stand for something, such as widow, related to a world war. (3) The letters WWW refer to the World Wide Web, more commonly referred to simply as the Web. (4) As millions of people worldwide access the Web on a regular basis, the letter W in triplicate is typed millions of times on a daily basis. (5) Many web site addresses begin with the letters WWW, which basically indicate to the user that he or she will enter the World Wide Web in order to locate the web address. (6) Technology has made the three letters WWW into possibly the most frequently used and most commonly known letter pattern in the world.

3. Which sentence is the topic sentence? Is it an effective topic sentence? Why or why not?



4. Which sentence is the concluding sentence? Does it echo the topic sentence? Explain.