The summary question tests candidates' ability to select relevant information from the passage at the same time presenting it concisely and precisely within the stipulated word limit. In this part, I will focus on question analysis, key words, content words and responding to all the aspects of the question.
It is very important for the candidates to carefully analyse the summary question in order to unpack all its demands. More often than not, candidates perform badly on this question as a result of failure to understand the demands of the question.
Understanding the question entails several aspects including identifying the material to be summarised. The summary question always specifies the parameters of the material to be summarised and candidates must always stick to it otherwise they may spend precious time working on material which is irrelevant thus risking losing all the marks allocated for this question. Pay attention to the instruction, "Use material from paragraph.... to the end of..." or "... from line... to line ..... Such phrases direct the candidate to the sections of the passage where relevant points must be extracted from. As such, any information taken from elsewhere other than the indicated section of the passage is irrelevant. It is always a good idea to draw a line at the beginning and another one at the end of the material in question.
Every summary question has key elements and candidates must identifying them; this is referred to as question analysis. It means breaking down the question into different parts to ensure correct interpretation of the question. Two of the key question elements are: the key word and the content word.
The key word gives specific instructions to the candidate regarding the task to be performed. It is in the form of a command word such as "summarise," or "describe". Indeed, key words are not limited to writing summaries, they are also used in other types of questions and in other subject areas. A typical examination question might read: "Write a summary describing..." or "Summarise the..." In these two examples, the words "summarise" and "describing" are key words; they instruct the student to summarise and to describe. If, for example, the candidate decides to discuss or to list in answering the above questions, the candidate would have demonstrated failure to understand the demands of the question.
The candidate should also identify the content word or phrase. The content word or phrase spells out the information the candidate should compile in the summary. Not all questions ask for the same information (content) and therefore it is imperative that candidates read the question carefully, noting the particular content the question is asking them to look for from the passage. Typical examination questions might read: "Summarise the actions ...." or " Summarise the feelings ...." In these two questions, the content words are "actions" and "feelings." Accordingly, as candidates are looking for points from the passage, they should look for information about the actions or the feelings; any other information which has nothing to do with these two ideas is irrelevant and candidates must not include it in their summary.
Some summary questions have more than one content word or phrase, also known as question aspects. Unwary candidates tend to focus on one aspect only and ignore the other aspects. Consider the typical examination question: "Summarise the thoughts and the feelings...." Clearly, the question has two limbs-the thoughts and the feelings and as such, candidates should look for points about both.
In How to Write a Summary part 2, I will focus on how to identify relevant points from the passage, distilling information and identifying the correct agent. The aspect of language will also be expounded on because no matter how relevant the points are, if the language used to express them is poor, a candidate cannot score maximum marks.
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