For the Chinese people, rice is the staple food in everyday meals. They eat it as Westerners do with bread. Rice is cooked by boiling or steaming, till it absorbs as much water as it can. There is a rich collection of rice dishes in China.
It is easy to identify a main idea that is directly expressed in the text. 1  Main ideas are often found at the beginning of paragraphs. 2  Main ideas are also found in the concluding sentences of a paragraph.
Reading questions on the ACT aren't arranged in order of difficulty, so the main idea questions on a passage might be the first questions on the page. But you're allowed to answer in any order you want, so just circle them, move on to the detail questions, and then come back to the main ideas later.