This set has ten original questions, ordered from easier to harder, covering all five lessons in summary selection and synthesis. Questions 1 to 3 practise selection, 4 to 6 merging and grouping, 7 and 8 paraphrase and 9 and 10 bring everything together.
Write your own answer on paper before opening the worked one. Your wording will differ, so compare the points you chose, not the sentences. Mark the ones you got wrong and use the routing list at the end.
Questions
1. Read this passage.
Noor’s bakery opens at five in the morning. Its walls are painted lemon yellow. Customers say the bread is always fresh, the prices are lower than the supermarket’s, and Noor remembers everyone’s name. Noor’s grandfather once owned a shop in Ipoh.
Task: Give the reasons customers choose the bakery. Which ideas belong?
Show answer
The focus is reasons customers give. Three are stated: the bread is fresh, prices are lower than the supermarket’s, and the owner knows customers by name. The yellow walls and the grandfather are description and background, and the opening time is a fact, not a reason customers give.
Customers choose it for the fresh bread, the lower prices and the personal service.
2. The task is “Describe the problems with the school canteen.” Which sentences are relevant?
- (a) The queue often reaches the corridor.
- (b) The canteen was rebuilt in a blue-and-white design.
- (c) Hot dishes usually run out before the second break.
- (d) The cook has worked at the school for twenty years.
Show answer
(a) and (c). Both are problems: long queues and food running out. (b) is description and (d) is background. Notice that (c) has “usually”, which a good answer will keep: hot dishes usually run out before the second break.
3. A passage says: “Visitors to the lake can hire boats, feed the ducks and have picnics. The lake is three hundred metres wide. It is stocked with fish each spring.” The task is “What can visitors do at the lake?” Which point would you leave out, and why?
Show answer
Leave out the width, and the fish stocking unless the passage says visitors fish. They describe the lake and its management, not activities for visitors. Keep hiring boats, feeding ducks and picnics.
4. Merge into one point: “The path turns to mud after rain. Walkers find it slippery when wet. After a downpour the track is hard to use.”
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The three sentences give one idea from different angles: after rain the path becomes muddy and hard to walk on. One sentence is enough: After rain the path becomes muddy and slippery, making it hard to use.
5. Should these be merged? “Tickets sell out within minutes.” and “Tickets are resold online at twice the price.” Explain, then write a sentence.
Show answer
They are not repeats. One is about how fast tickets sell, and the other about resale at a higher price. Merging into “tickets are hard to get” loses the price point. Keep both in one sentence: Tickets sell out within minutes and are then resold online at twice the price.
6. These points come from a passage about a recycling scheme. The task is “Explain how the scheme works and what it achieves.”
- Bins are placed in every classroom.
- Prefects collect the bins each Monday.
- Paper is weighed and the total recorded.
- Money from selling the paper buys library books.
- Glass is not accepted.
Choose an organising principle and group the points.
Show answer
The task has two parts, so use process, then result.
- How it works: bins in classrooms, prefects collect on Mondays, paper is weighed.
- What it achieves: money from the paper buys library books.
“Glass is not accepted” is a limit, not part of how it works or what it achieves, so it is left out unless the task asks for limits.
Paper is gathered in classroom bins, collected by prefects each Monday and weighed, and the money from selling it pays for library books.
7. Paraphrase and keep the qualifiers: “Only about a third of pupils walk to school, and this figure is likely to fall.”
Show answer
Qualifiers: “only”, “about a third”, “likely”.
Just around one in three pupils go on foot, and the proportion is expected to decrease.
“Just” keeps the limit of “only”, “around one in three” keeps “about a third”, and “expected” matches “likely”. Writing “Few pupils will walk” would change the claim.
8. The original says: “Some shops may close on public holidays.” A student writes: “Shops close on public holidays.” Name the two changes and correct it.
Show answer
“Some” was dropped, so the claim now covers all shops, and “may” was dropped, so a possibility has become a certainty. A faithful version is: A number of shops could shut on public holidays.
9. Read this passage and draft.
The Friday night market lets stallholders sell to about two thousand visitors without paying shop rent. Many traders start here before opening a shop. Visitors enjoy the smell of grilled satay. Traffic around the market is heavy, and nearby residents complain about noise.
Task: Summarise the benefits of the market to traders.
Draft: Traders can sell to large crowds without renting a shop, and some use it as a first step before opening a shop. Visitors enjoy the satay, though residents complain about noise.
Check the draft and revise it.
Show answer
Focus: the satay and the residents’ complaints are not benefits to traders, so cut both. Accuracy: the source says “many traders”, but the draft says “some”, which weakens the claim. Coverage: both trader benefits are present. Own words: fine.
Traders can reach large crowds without paying shop rent, and many use the market as a first step towards opening a shop.
10. Read this original passage and write a summary of no more than two sentences.
Last term Hillview School moved its first lesson from 7.30 to 8.15. The head, Ms Rahim, gave two reasons. Staff had noticed that many students arrived tired and were slow to settle.
A short study by the science department also suggested that alertness in the first period was poorer than later in the day. She also hopes the change will reduce lateness, because most late students travel a long way by bus. Parents have mixed views, and the canteen will now open later.
Task: Summarise the reasons the school gave for the later start.
Show answer
Select: tiredness and lower early alertness (with the study as support), and lateness among those who travel far. Leave out the parents’ views and the canteen, which are reactions and consequences, not reasons.
Keep qualifiers: “many students”, “suggested”, “hopes”, “most late students”.
The school believes a later start will help the many students who arrive tired to be more alert in the first lesson, as a short study suggested, and hopes it will reduce lateness among those who travel far by bus.
Check: every clause is a stated reason, the hedges “suggested” and “hopes” are kept, and nothing is copied whole.
If you got these wrong
Match the kind of error to the lesson that repairs it.
- Questions 1, 2 and 3, choosing vivid or off-focus detail: go to separate a relevant point from an interesting detail.
- Questions 4 and 5, repeats or over-merging: go to combine repeated ideas without losing meaning.
- Question 6, scattered points: go to group points using a clear organising principle.
- Questions 7 and 8, changed strength or copied wording: go to paraphrase while preserving qualifications.
- Questions 9 and 10, answers that drift from the task: go to check a summary against the task focus.
Record each slip in the mistake log and retest queue with the error type, so a fresh passage can be retested later. The summary selection and paraphrase studio gives more passages to choose points from, and the writing revision compare view helps you see what changed between drafts.
When the same error returns after a lesson, a teacher in online one-to-one English First Language tuition can read your written summaries beside the passage and set tasks that test exactly that step.