1. Which of these sentences states a theme? Joe didn't realize what happens when you lie to your friends about something. It's important to be honest with your friends if you want to keep them. Joel's friends found out that he lied and decided not to let him play with them. Joel told his friends that he couldn't come out to play, but he really just wanted to watch TV.

It's important to be honest with your friends if you want to keep them.

Explanation:

The theme of any text is the idea, central topic, the main subject of the whole text. Themes may directly or indirectly present the main purpose of the whole text.

In the given passage, the theme can be found in the sentence "[I]t's important to be honest with your friends if you want to keep them." This provides the claim or idea of being truthful to one's friends. It gives a universal expression, not mentioning any particular character or thing. Whereas the other sentences contain the subject's name which, most of the time, need not be in the main theme of a text.

Thus, the correct answer is "[I]t's important to be honest with your friends if you want to keep them."