How to Summarize Written Text - Pearson Test of English
The Summarize Written Text question on the PTE may seem easy because you only have to write 1 sentence. However, this means that you have to do a lot in that one sentence!
In this article, you will learn all the strategies, tips, and tricks you need to get a high score on this question type.
Table of Contents
- How the Summarize Written Text Question Type Works
- How to Do Well on the Summarize Written Text Question Type
- Conclusion
How the Summarize Written Text Question Type Works
The Summarize Written Text question type looks like this:
You are given a passage of text. You have 10 minutes to read the text and provide a one sentence summary.
You will see this question type 2 or 3 times on the test. It counts toward your Reading and Writing scores.
Here is how you are scored. I've also added a brief description of each one.
- Content (0-2 points): How well does your sentence summarize the passage?
- Length (0-1): Is your sentence between 5 and 75 words long?
- Grammar (0-2): Does your sentence have a lot or few grammar mistakes?
- Vocabulary (0-2): Does your sentence include relevant, advanced vocabulary?
How to Do Well on the Summarize Written Text Question Type
Let's now go through the steps you should follow to get a high score on this question type.
1. Read the entire passage
You have 10 minutes for this question type, which is quite a bit of time. To start, you should thoroughly read the passage. Try to understand it as well as you can.
If you encounter a place that you are struggling to understand, don't stay on it too long. Make a note and come back to it after you have read the rest of the passage. Often, understanding other parts of a text helps us to better understand things we don't get the first time.
You should take 1 or 2 minutes to do this.
2. Identify the main idea of the passage
After you have read the entire passage, you should clearly identify the main idea. Write it down. The main idea should be no more than a sentence, ideally just a few words. For the passage in the example provided at the beginning of the article, the main idea is: interbreeding among early human species.
Like in the example, often, the main idea will be mentioned in either the introductory sentence (the first sentence) or the concluding sentence (the last sentence).
3. Identify the main idea of each paragraph
For the next 2 to 3 minutes, re-read the passage, pausing after each paragraph to identify its main idea. On the test, the passage will often have paragraphs, but sometimes not. This is the case with the example above.
However, even if the paragraphs aren't actually there, the passage will still have sections that could be paragraphs. For passages like the one above, you will have to do the additional work of identifying the paragraphs/sections.
Typically, the passage will have 2 or 3 paragraphs/sections. Don't stress about perfectly identifying them. This step is just about helping you identify the sub-ideas that you need to include in your one-sentence summary.
In the example above, here are the paragraphs/sections and their main ideas that I identified:
Paragraph 1:
Recent paleogenomics research revealed that interbreeding was common among early human species. However, little was known about when, where, and how often this hominin interbreeding took place. Using paleoanthropological evidence, genetic data, and supercomputer simulations of past climate, a team of international researchers has found that interglacial climates and corresponding shifts in vegetation created common habitats for Neanderthals and Denisovans, increasing their chances for interbreeding and gene flow in parts of Europe and Central Asia. Contemporary humans carry in their cells a small amount of DNA derived from Neanderthals and Denisovans. "Denny" a 90,000-year-old fossil individual, recently identified as the daughter of a Denisovan father and a Neanderthal mother, bears testimony to the possibility that interbreeding was quite common among early human species.
Main idea: Researchers have recently discovered that changes in the climate in the past increased interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans in parts of Europe and Central Asia.
Paragraph 2:
But when, where, and at what frequency did this interbreeding take place? In a recent study published in Science on 10 August 2023, researchers from Korea and Italy joined hands to answer this question. Using fossil data, computer simulations of past climate, and insights obtained from genomic evidence, the team was able to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of these early human species. Dr. Jiaoyang Ruan, Postdoctoral Researcher at IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP), South Korea, explains, "Little is know about when, where, and how frequently Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred throughout their shared history. As such, we tried to understand the potential for Neanderthal-Denisovan admixture using species distribution models that bring extensive fossil, archeological, and genetic data together with transient Coupled General Circulation Model simulations of global climate and biome."
Main idea: Researchers from Italy and South Korea teamed up and used a variety of methods to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of Neanderthals and Denisovans.
4. Combine your ideas into your "base summary" sentence
At this point, I have 3 building blocks of a response:
- The main idea of the passage: Interbreeding among early human species.
- The main idea of paragraph #1: Researchers have recently discovered that changes in the climate in the past increased interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans in parts of Europe and Central Asia.
- The main idea of paragraph #2: Researchers from Italy and South Korea teamed up and used a variety of methods to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Now, combine these building blocks into a one-sentence summary of the text. This is your "base summary".
For the passage we have been working with, you could have something like: Using a variety of methods, researchers from Italy and South Korea recently teamed up to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of Neanderthals and Denisovans caused by climate changes in the past.
Just like that, we have a decent response! When you are identifying the main ideas of the passage and its paragraphs, this is why it's important to keep it concise. This allows you to easily combine these into a single summary sentence that you can be sure captures the main ideas of the passage, which is the entire goal of a summary.
In other words, with this "base summary" strategy, you can be sure you do the most important things first! Moreover, if you are running out of time, you can still get a good score with this "base summary."
However, we can improve on this "base summary" to get more points.
5. Add more to your "base summary"
Let's now add more ideas into our response. How you can do this will depend on the passage and your "base summary." A common opportunity is to add specific examples.
In our case, we can start by adding examples of the methods used:
Using a variety of methods, like fossil data, computer simulations of past climate, and insights obtained from genomic evidence, researchers from Italy and South Korea recently teamed up to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of Neanderthals and Denisovans caused by climate changes in the past.
We can also add examples of the climate changes:
Using a variety of methods, like fossil data, computer simulations of past climate, and insights obtained from genomic evidence, researchers from Italy and South Korea recently teamed up to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of Neanderthals and Denisovans caused by climate changes in the past, namely interglacial climates and corresponding shifts in vegetation.
Finally, we can add a little more information at the very end:
Using a variety of methods, like fossil data, computer simulations of past climate, and insights obtained from genomic evidence, researchers from Italy and South Korea recently teamed up to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of Neanderthals and Denisovans caused by climate changes in the past, namely interglacial climates and corresponding shifts in vegetation, that resulted in greater chances for interbreeding and gene flow in parts of Europe and Central Asia.
This response is 71 words long and contains a lot of information. It's an excellent summary already. But, we can make it even better still!
6. Use synonyms
Remember that "Vocabulary" is one of the scoring criteria. An easy way to show off your vocabulary is to use synonyms for words and phrases that you are borrowing from the passage itself. In our summary, in several places we repeat word-for-word what was in the passage. If we can, we should try to rephrase those parts using our own words:
...like fossil data, computer simulations of past climate, and insights obtained from genomic evidence...
We could rephrase this as: ...data from fossils, computer simulations of climates from the past, and findings gained from studying genomes...
...interglacial climates and corresponding shifts in vegetation...
We could rephrase this as: ...interglacial climates and shifts in vegetations caused by them...
It's important to note that you should not try to rephrase everything. For example, I did not rephrase "interglacial climates" because I'm not sure what this is. In general, it will be difficult to rephrase technical terms and other jargon.
Here would be our final response:
Using a variety of methods, data from fossils, computer simulations of climates from the past, and findings gained from studying genomes, researchers from Italy and South Korea recently teamed up to identify habitat overlaps and contact hotspots of Neanderthals and Denisovans caused by climate changes in the past, interglacial climates and shifts in vegetations caused by them, that resulted in greater chances for interbreeding and gene flow in parts of Europe and Central Asia.
7. Proofread
The final step is to proofread your sentence to make sure it has no grammar or spelling mistakes! This step is vital. We recommend saving 1 minute to do this.
As we are thinking about ideas and trying to find the right words as we write, we will make grammar mistakes. This is true even for native speakers. This is why it is crucial that you save time at the end to proofread your response, just focusing entirely on fixing any obvious grammar or spelling mistakes. These mistakes are so easy to fix, but they also lose you so many points! Saving time to proofread is perhaps the easiest thing that you can do to raise your score on Summarize Written Text questions.
Conclusion
Now you know how to approach Summarize Written Text questions! Best of luck in your preparations for the test 😄
