PTE Summarize Written Text

                                                 PTE Summarize Written Text

Summarization of written text

1-2

10 minutes to summarize a given content within 300 words 

 Scoring Guide

Your score in Summarize Written depends upon 4 things – Content, Form, Grammar & Vocabulary. But the most important is content. If no response or irrelevant response is given, you will get a zero straight away. If you have provided an acceptable response then your content will be scored on ‘form’. Then after your response will be scored for grammar and vocabulary.

1. Content – You get full marks if you provide a good summary (good summary means that it should cover all relevant aspects). Partial credit, if your summary misses one or two aspects. No marks, if your summary misses the main aspect of the text.

2. Form – Full marks if you write your summary in one sentence. You get zero if you write more than one sentence or your sentence contains fewer than 5 or more than 75 words.

3. Grammar – Full credit if you use correct grammatical structure. Partial credit if your sentence contains grammatical errors but with no hindrance to communication. No marks, if your sentence has a defective grammatical structure which could hinder communication.

4. Vocabulary – Full credit if your sentence has the appropriate choice of words. Partial credit if you sentence has lexical errors but with no hindrance to communication. No credit if your sentence has defective word choice which could hinder communication.

General Tips To Improve Summary Writing

1. Thoroughly read and understand the text carefully. When you read it, you will get the feeling for the author’s style, tone, and mood.

2. Identify main ideas and supporting ideas – You have to summarize only key information, write down all the key points. Words that are repeated several times are likely to be keywords. You just have to include one main idea & at most 2-3 supporting ideas. That’s all. Don’t stuff the summary with unnecessary information.

3. Rewrite using complex sentences – As per PTE guidelines, you have to summarize the passage and give your response using one sentence between 5 and 75 words. So it is necessary that you learn to write complex sentences.

Please keep in mind that ‘Paraphrasing’ is very important. Don’t copy the exact words from the paragraph; always rewrite the information in your own words.

Below is a list of the most commonly used linking words:

and but	after while	though	because	as soon as	until
where	even though	whether	whereas	wherever	when
before	if	although	since	unless	so that

Summarize written text :( R: 3, W: 8)

1.      You will have two questions

2.       For each of the questions, you will have  10 minutes

3.      You will have 2/3 paragraphs having 200 words to read.

4.       You will have to write 5 to 75 words ( in average 25 to 40 words)

5.      Make a single sentence, having a capital letter in the first word, comma, use connectives such as and, but, also, as well as, however, moreover, furthermore, because, although etc.

6.      You have to read for 2 min, write 7 min, and edit 1 min.

Tentative marks:

•      Content: 2

•      Form: 2

•      Grammar: 2

•      Spelling: 2

                  Useful templates for summarize written text

The text offers insight into…………and the author began by explaining about……..along with mentioning about………. finally adding about……

                  Or,

The text is based on……………………… and it is…………………………………as well as it tells about …………………..which is …………………………..

                  or,

The provided text is about…………….which (tells/ means)………………where/ whereas…………………..so that……………………

 

A – Read and summarize written text in your words – Online learning

What makes teaching online unique is that it uses the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, as the primary means of communication. Thus, when you teach online, you don’t have to be someplace to teach. You don’t have to lug your briefcase full of papers or your laptop to a classroom, stand at a lectern, scribble on a chalkboard, or grade papers in a stuffy room while your students take a test. You don’t even have to sit in your office waiting for students to show up for conferences. You can hold “office hours” on weekends or at night after dinner.

You can do all this while living in a small town in Wyoming or a big city like Bangkok, even if you’re working for a college whose administrative offices are located in Florida or Dubai. You can attend an important conference in Hawaii on the same day that you teach your class in New Jersey, longing on from your laptop via the local cafe’s wireless hot sport or your hotel room’s high-speed network.

Online learning offers more freedom for students as well. They can search for courses using the Web, scouring their institution or even the world for programs, classes and instructors that fit their needs. Having found an appropriate course, they can enrol and register, shop for their books, read articles, listen to lectures, submit their homework assignments, confer with their instructors, and receive their final grades – all online. They can assemble in virtual classrooms, joining other students from diverse geographical locales, forging bond and friendships not possible in conventional classrooms, which are usually limited to students from a specific geographical area.

ANSWER A

Online teaching provides the freedom to both teachers and students as teachers need not be at a specific place to teach because they use the internet as the medium of communication, whereas, students can enroll, register, submit assignments and receive grades- all online. 

The text is based on online learning and it is providing the freedom to both teachers and students as well as it tells about the use of internet, which is really helpful to learn everything just one click by living in the village, or the city.

B – Read and summarize written text in your words – Nurse Sharks

Nurse sharks are nocturnal animals, spending the day in large inactive groups of up to 40 individuals. Hidden under submerged ledges or in crevices within the reef, the Nurse sharks seem to prefer specific resting sites and will return to them each day after the nights hunting. By night, the sharks are largely solitary. Nurse sharks spend most of their time foraging through the bottom sediments in search of food. Their diet consists primarily of crustaceans, molluscs, tunicates and other fish such as spiny lobsters, crabs, shrimps, sea urchins, octopuses, squid, marine snails and bivalves and in particularly, stingrays.

Nurse sharks are thought to take advantage of dormant fish which would otherwise be too fast for the sharks to catch, although their small mouths limit the size of prey items, the sharks have large throat cavities which are used as a sort of bellows valve. In this way, Nurse sharks are able to suck in their prey. Nurse sharks are also known to graze algae and coral.  Nurse sharks have been observed resting on the bottom with their bodies supported on their fins, possibly providing a false shelter for crustaceans which they then ambush and eat.

ANSWER B

Nurse Sharks, spend most of the time either foraging through the bottom to find food or resting at specific sites, hunts at night and spends the day in large inactive groups. 

The text is based on Nurse Sharks and it is spending the day in large inactive groups as well as it tells about graze algae, and coral which is .resting on the bottom.

 

C. Read and summarize written text in your words – Water

Water is at the core of sustainable development. Water resources, and the range of services they provide underpin poverty reduction, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. From food and energy security to human and environmental health, water contributes to improvements in social well- being and inclusive growth, affecting the livelihoods of billions. In a sustainable world that is achievable in the near future, water and related resources are managed in support of human well-being and ecosystem integrity in a robust economy.

Sufficient and safe water is made available to meet every person’s basic needs, with healthy lifestyles and behaviors easily upheld through reliable and affordable water supply and sanitation services, in turn, supported by equitably extended and efficiently managed infrastructure. Water resources management, infrastructure, and service delivery are sustainably financed. Water is duly valued in all its forms, with wastewater treated as a resource that avails energy, nutrients, and freshwater for reuse.

ANSWER C

Water, which improves the social well-being and affects the livelihood of billions, is a core of sustainable development due to which its resources are managed for integrity in the ecosystem.

D. Read and summarize written text in your words – Cities

How can we design great cities from scratch if we cannot agree on what makes them great? None of the cities where people most want to live such as London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong comes near to being at the top of surveys asking which are best to live in.

The top three in the most recent Economist Intelligence Units livability ranking, for example, were Melbourne, Vancouver, and Vienna. They are all perfectly pleasant, but great? The first question to tackle is the difference between livability and greatness. Perhaps we cannot aspire to make a great city, but if we attempt to make a livable one, can it in time become great?

There are some fundamental elements that you need. The first is public space. Whether it is Vienna’s Ringstrasse and Prater park, or the beaches of Melbourne and Vancouver, these are places that allow the city to pause and the citizens to mingle and to breathe, regardless of class or wealth. Good cities also seem to be close to nature, and all three have easy access to varied, wonderful landscapes and topographies.

A second crucial factor, says Ricky Burdett, a professor of urban studies at the London School of Economics, is a good transport system. Affordable public transport is the one thing which cuts across all successful cities, he says.

ANSWER D

The factors such as easy access to various landscapes, public space for citizens to breathe, and affordable public transportation are crucial for designing a great city. 

 

The same central idea

Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence (5-75 words). Type your response in the box at the bottom of the screen. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage.

Sample 1

During the time of the Aztecs, cocoa was mainly used as a beverage. Wines and drinks were made from white pulp around the seeds of the cocoa pod. The beans themselves were used to make hot or cold chocolate drinks. Both the Maya and the Aztec secular drinks used roasted cocoa beans, a foaming agent (sugar), toasted corn and water. Vanilla and/or chili were also used as an ingredient in the drinks. Cocoa beans were also used as a currency and as a tribute (tax) from peoples ruled by Aztecs. The oily layer floating in the chocolate drink (cocoa butter was used to protect the skin against the sun. For the Aztecs cocoa had a religious significance. Cocoa was believed to be of divine origin: the cocoa tree was a bridge between earth and heaven. Human sacrifices to propitiate God or sun were first sanctified by giving him chocolate. Cocoa beans were given to priest’s assistants at children’s coming of age ceremonies. During marriage ceremonies, the couple drank a symbolic cup of chocolate and exchanged cocoa beans. Aztecs believed that drinking chocolate gave mortals some of Quetzalcoatl’s (God of earning and of the wind) wisdom.

Answer

Cocoa was used by the Aztec people in different ways such as a drink, a form of money for tax collection, a sun protective lotion, a religious commodity and a symbol of bringing wisdom upon the receiver.

 

Sample 2

 The opposite central idea

Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence (5-75 words). Type your response in the box at the bottom of the screen. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage.

Males do the singing and females do the listening. This has been the established, even cherished view of courtship in birds, but now some ornithologists are changing tune. Laszlo Garamszegi of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and colleagues studied the literature on 233 European songbird species. Of the 109 for which information on females was available, they found evidence for singing in 101 species. In only eight species could the team conclude that females did not sing. Females that sing have been overlooked, the team say, because either their songs are quiet, they are mistaken for males from their similar plumage or they live in less well-studied areas such as the tropics (Behavioral Ecology, DOI: 10.1093/arlo47). Garamszegi blames Charles Darwin for the oversight. “He emphasized the importance of male sexual display, and this is what everyone has been looking at.” The findings go beyond modern species. After carefully tracing back an evolutionary family tree for their songbirds, Garamszegi’s team discovered that, in at least two bird families, singing evolved in females first. They suggest these ancient females may have been using their songs to deter other females from their territories, to coordinate breeding activities with males, or possibly to attract mates.

Answer

Despite the misconception that was initially put forth by Charles Darwin that highlighted the importance of singing in male birds for courtship purposes, a team of researchers from University of Antwerp discovered that most of the females in family trees for songbirds actually sang songs possibly to attract mates or defend their territories.

3- Cause and effect idea

Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence (5-75 words). Type your response in the box at the bottom of the screen. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage.

Take a Nap, Protect Your Heart? people who took naps at least three times a week for average of at least 30 minutes were 37% less likely to die of heart disease than people who did not take regular naps Large Greek Study Suggests Midday Siestas Cut Heart Deaths Naps aren’t generally included in the litany of good-for-your-heart lifestyle choices recommended for lowering cardiovascular risk, but they may soon be. New research suggests a midday siesta may reduce a person’s risk of death from heart disease possibly by lowering stress levels. The findings must be confirmed, but Dimitrios Trichopoulos, MD, a study author, tells WebMD there is little downside to taking naps and there could be big health benefits. The siesta is a victim of progress. Most of us aren’t in the position to take a daily nap, he says. But our research suggests that the practice could help protect the heart, and we need further studies to find out if this really is the case.” Part of the Culture: Trichopoulos says the research stemmed from the observation that heart disease death rates are lower in Mediterranean and Latin American countries where midday siestas are part of the culture. His own earlier research in a Greek population provided weak evidence in favor of the nap hypothesis, but another, larger study, conducted in Costa Rica failed to show an association. The newly published Greek study by Trichopoulos and colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and Greece’s University of Athens Medical School is the largest ever to examine the issue in a previously healthy population. A total of 23,681 residents of Greece with no history of heart disease, stroke, or cancer at enrollment were followed an average of 6.3 years.

Answer

A new study done by a Greek research group on a total number of 23,681 participants has found that regular naps in the afternoon for three times a week can positively reduce the risk of heart diseases by 37%, possibly due to the fact that it can reduce the stress levels.