Summarize Written Text: a one-sentence method that holds up

Summarize Written Text has a trap that has nothing to do with hard vocabulary. You must write one sentence and only one, so a second full stop turns a decent answer into a wrong-format answer. The opposite mistake is easy to make too: a single sentence stretched until it breaks, because you tried to fit in every detail from the passage.

What is being marked

You read a passage and write one sentence that sums it up. The limit is commonly given as 5 to 75 words, but confirm that on screen, because task rules can change. Pearson's score guide describes the marking in full. In plain terms, you are judged on whether you caught the main points, whether your answer is a single sentence of the right length, and how good your grammar and vocabulary are.

Content is the part people forget while they polish the grammar. A beautifully punctuated sentence about the wrong thing scores badly.

Find the skeleton first

A passage is a skeleton with a lot of flesh on it. Before you write anything, find the bones.

1. Read once at normal speed and name the topic in two or three words. If you cannot, reread the first and last sentences.
2. Find the two or three main ideas. Each paragraph usually has one sentence doing the real work. It often comes first or last, or follows a signal such as however, the main reason or as a result.
3. Cross out examples, numbers, names and quotations. An example is there to support an idea; it is not the idea. If you catch yourself wanting to keep a vivid example, that is usually a sign it is detail.
4. Say the summary aloud in ordinary speech: "It is about X, it says Y, and the catch is Z." Then write that.

Join the ideas with connectors

One sentence can carry three ideas if the connectors do the work. Choose by what the ideas do to each other:

• Reason: because, since
• Contrast: although, while, whereas
• Addition: and, as well as
• A comment on what came before: a comma and which

Use one or two. Every connector is a place where the grammar can fail, so a 30-word sentence with two connectors is safer than a 60-word sentence with five. Skip semicolons, and skip abbreviations like "etc." that add full stops. The only one you want is the one at the end.

A worked example

This passage is an illustrative example, made up for this post, so the figure in it is not real. Real passages are longer, but the method does not change.

The topic is libraries coming back. The three main ideas are that they now offer more than books, that supporters say they save money elsewhere, and that critics doubt the funding will last. Job applications, printing and classes are examples of the first idea. "A third" and the staffing costs are detail. Cross them out and you can build this:

Why it works:

• It is one sentence of 31 words that covers the topic and all three ideas, with a single full stop at the end.
• The examples are folded into "practical services", and the figure is gone.
• Each connector does one job: which adds a comment, as well as adds an item, although sets up a contrast.
• Most of the wording is new ("bringing back closed" for "reopening", "doubt" for "worry"). Key nouns such as libraries and funding stay, because no better words exist.

A ten-minute routine

A short text and ten minutes are enough.

1. Minutes 0 to 2: read a text of 150 to 250 words from a news site or a textbook. In the margin, write the topic in three words and one main idea per paragraph.
2. Minutes 2 to 3: cross out every example, number and name.
3. Minutes 3 to 7: write one sentence of roughly 25 to 45 words. That range is a rule of thumb, not a Pearson number: long enough for the ideas, short enough to keep the grammar under control.
4. Minutes 7 to 9: check it. One capital, one full stop, a subject and a verb in every clause, and no run of five or more words copied from the text. Does it still mean what the writer meant?
5. Minutes 9 to 10: rewrite it with a different connector, for example while instead of although, and keep the version that reads better.

Keep your sentences in a notebook. After a fortnight you will see which connector you lean on too often.

Tonight, pick one article you have not read yet and run the routine once. When you want timed conditions, try the practice tests on this site, which give AI-estimated scores, not official ones. After a few attempts, read the mistakes that cost marks and check your own sentences against it.