Lesson 8 – Summaries without a list
Today we are going to look carefully at summaries/gapfiller exercises in the reading section
You will learn some techniques for approaching these and find out how to make sure you can find the right words quickly and easily.
Let’s begin with some information about summaries
Students often find these exercises very time-consuming as they need to find random words with no help
- Firstly, nothing in the IELTS is really random. It is all a matter of analysing the questions and the text and then matching the two together to find the right answer.Understanding how texts fit together and how one paragraph flows into another is also a good skill and one which will help your writing too.
- In my experience the summaries without the word list tend to be a little easier than those with the list so you should be able to find the words without too much difficulty.
- First decide if the summary is of the whole passage or just part of it.
- Make sure you know how many words you are allowed to use (remember a hyphenated word counts as one word)
- Read the summary so that you know what it means – see if you can predict the kind of word (noun, verb, adjective etc..) and get an idea in your head of words that would make sense in the context.
- Try to insert a word into the space to complete the sentence, this kind of prediction will help you find the right word.
- The better you understand the section and the sort of words that are required the easier it will be to choose the right word from the passage.
- Now check the key words and look in the passage for a match for these key words. When you are sure of the place then see which words here fit the space does this coincide with your prediction?
- Be careful of the grammar – sometimes you will need to change the word so that it fits the sentence correctly (e.g. from a verb to a noun or from singular to plural).
- Finally, when you put your answer on the answer sheet make sure it is spelt correctly.
Key skills to develop:
Follow this step-by-step approach:
- Skim the summary and make sure you know what it is about. Do you remember something about this in the passage?
- Try to add your own words so that the summary makes sense. If you are not sure of a word then try to identify the grammatical form – is it a noun, a verb, an adjective etc..
- Are there any helpful clues like a person’s name or a number – this will help you to find the place in the passage.
- Now look at the words around the blanks. Which of these are key words that will help you with the location of this information?
- If it is a summary of the whole passage then use the same system of key words to locate each blank. If your key words are identified correctly then you should be able to skim for them quickly and then analyse the sentence containing them to pick out the correct word for the space.
- The information in the summary might not be in exactly the same order as the text so you might need to do some skimming and scanning to make sure you have all the information.
- Check that the place in the text contains the word/s (or a synonym) that you want. Don’t try to squeeze an answer into the blank – if it doesn’t fit well then it probably isn’t correct and you may need to look at another place.
- Finally, if you are happy with the word/s you have chosen then check the grammar/spelling and then write down your answer
Things to do for summaries:
Learn about the relationship of words in a sentence
- do some exercises on collocation (this is the way in which words are naturally put together in English) here’s an example from Gapfillers see if you can find others online or in your grammar book
- choose a summary from your IELTS book and put in your own words so that it is complete and makes sense. When you are happy with this look at the actual summary answer – were you close to the answer? Using your knowledge of English and your understanding of the summary should help you to predict the answers and this will help you to identify the correct answer better.
- I have created an exercise to share with other members of this programme in the private Facebook Group. I’ve posted a passage there and I want you to create short gap-fill sentences in the comments box (try to re-write these keeping the same meaning and use synonyms). Have a go at each other’s exercises and let people know if they are correct or not.
Don’t forget, if there is anything you don’t understand or can’t find send a message via Contact us
Let’s have a go at a summary exercise
Here are two exercises for you.
The first is a general exercise on approaching summaries.
http://www.gapfillers.co.uk/default.aspx?atk=7641
The second is an IELTS summary exercise – try to use the techniques above when you do it.
http://www.gapfillers.co.uk/default.aspx?atk=7639
Here’s a bonus exercise on text organisation – can you organise this story?
http://www.gapfillers.co.uk/default.aspx?atk=394
Don’t forget, if there is anything you don’t understand or can’t find send a message via Contact us
Now you’re done!
Good luck and let’s make great progress with IELTS!