The exam-style question
This is an ESL summary question, in the style of the English as a Second Language papers. Read it as you would in the exam, then compare your plan with the model.
Read our text and write a short summary of the ways the festival brings the town together. Use your own words and keep it to a short paragraph. This is our own practice material.
The Lantern Festival
Every autumn, the small town of Serang holds its Lantern Festival, and for one week the ordinary rhythm of the place changes completely. Weeks beforehand, families gather in the evenings to fold and paste paper lanterns, so that neighbours who rarely speak find themselves working side by side at shared tables. Shopkeepers who usually compete for customers club together to string lights across the main street.
On the opening night, the whole town walks the same route down to the river, young and old carrying their glowing lanterns, and strangers greet one another in the warm dark. Volunteers cook huge pots of rice and stew to share, so that no one, however poor, goes without a meal that night. Even those who have moved away for work make the journey home, filling houses that stand half-empty the rest of the year.
When the last lanterns are floated onto the water, people linger by the bank, reluctant to let the shared feeling end, and for weeks afterwards the town feels closer than before.
Model response: ESL summary
A summary selects the relevant points, rewrites them in your own words and keeps to the length set. Here, the focus is the ways the festival unites the town.
Reading a model answer helps. In a paid one-hour trial, a teacher helps your child write one like it on ESL summary.
Common errors we see
- Copying phrases instead of rewriting in your own words
- Retelling the whole text rather than the point the task asks for
- Adding personal opinion or comment
- Going over the length because points are not combined
- Including examples and detail instead of the main ideas
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards.
For ESL summary, the objectives in play are listed below. The wording is summarised for Cambridge IGCSE English as a Second Language (0510) on our qualification page.
- Select and organise relevant details for a particular purpose.
- Organise ideas into coherent, well-linked text.
- Use an appropriate range of grammatical structures and vocabulary accurately.
Select the relevant points, then write them as clear, well-linked sentences using accurate grammar.
Other boards word their objectives differently, but the same skills earn the marks. Your board's official syllabus gives the exact weighting.
Where to go next
Learn the method in our guide to ESL summary, then try the ESL summary practice tasks. You can browse every annotated model response or see how we teach this in our English as a Second Language tuition.
When you have written your own answer, take it to a paid one-hour trial lesson and the teacher who would continue will mark it with you.