A summary tests whether you can find the ideas that matter. You strip them of the writer's decoration and put them in your own words without repeating yourself. The skill is selection and concision, not length.
Draft each one, then trim until every sentence earns its place, and check it against the reveal. In a lesson, our teachers give line-by-line feedback on a draft.
1Read the passage below, which we wrote for practice, then write a summary. 'Ask the stallholders on Jalan Lama why their night market has outlasted three shopping malls and you get as many answers as there are stalls. Mrs Tan, who has sold kuih here for years, points first to the rent: the council charges by the metre and asks for nothing else, so a young cook can start with a wok and a folding table.
Others mention the hours; the market opens when offices close, catching the crowd on its way home and hungry. The lane is covered, too, so the monsoon empties the malls but not the market. Regulars say they come for faces they know, and a new vendor is watched, gently, until the crowd decides. And because the stalls change with what is cheap that week, no two Fridays taste the same, which the food courts, with their fixed and laminated menus, can never manage.' In your own words and as concisely as you can, summarise the reasons the night market has succeeded.
Use only points from the passage, do not repeat yourself, and stay within the word limit the 0500 summary task sets; check the specimen paper on the Cambridge International website.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Comb the passage for distinct reasons and list them before writing: low, simple rent; convenient evening hours; shelter from the monsoon; a sense of community and trust; and variety that changes weekly. Merge none, repeat none.
Then rewrite each in your own words in one flowing paragraph. Drop Mrs Tan, the quotations and the mall comparison unless a point depends on it.
Model opening: The market thrives partly because its stalls are cheap and simple to set up, and because it opens in the evening when hungry office workers are heading home.
Checklist:
- Found every distinct reason and listed it before writing
- Used my own words throughout, not the writer's phrasing
- Left out examples, names and quotations used only for colour
- Did not repeat the same point in different words
- Kept it concise and within the word limit the paper sets
2Read the passage below, which we wrote for this exercise, then write a summary. 'Teaching on the outer islands asks things of a teacher that the mainland never does. Supplies arrive by the same weekly boat that brings everything else, so a box of exercise books can be bumped for engine parts and simply not come.
The internet, when it works, works for an hour after dawn, and lessons that depend on it are planned twice, once with and once without. Many teachers are the only adult in their subject for a day's travel in any direction, so marking or doubt has no colleague to share it with. Families need children for the tides and the harvest, so a class thins without warning in some weeks and swells in others. And yet the same teachers say the students, who have so little to distract them, are the most attentive they have ever taught.' Summarise, in your own words and concisely, the difficulties teachers face on the outer islands.
Draw only on the passage, and keep within the word limit the summary task sets; see the 0500 specimen paper on the Cambridge International website.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Select only the difficulties: unreliable supplies bumped from the weekly boat; internet that works barely an hour a day; professional isolation with no nearby colleague; and attendance that rises and falls with tides and harvest. Notice the last sentence praises the students, which is not a difficulty, so leave it out. Reword the rest concisely.
Model opening: Teachers on the outer islands struggle because supplies arrive only by a weekly boat and are easily displaced by more urgent cargo, so essential materials may simply fail to appear.
Checklist:
A trial lesson can start from your child's attempt at Summary & directed response practice for Cambridge International 0500, with feedback from an experienced teacher.
- Selected only genuine difficulties from the passage
- Correctly excluded the point about attentive students
- Reworded each point rather than copying
- Avoided repetition and unnecessary detail
- Stayed within the word limit the summary task sets
3Read the passage below, which we wrote for practice, then answer both parts. 'When the last few pairs of the island's storm-petrel were found nesting on a single cliff, the trust acted quickly. Rats, which had arrived with ships and eaten the eggs for a century, were cleared from the headland over two winters.
Volunteers built low stone walls to give the chicks cover from gulls. Recordings of the birds' calls were played at dusk to coax passing petrels down to new burrows. None of it was simple.
The rat clearance cost more than the trust had, and a single pregnant rat swimming back from a boat could undo a season's work. The birds breed slowly, raising one chick a year, so numbers crept rather than climbed, and funders grew impatient with a graph that barely moved. Storms, worsening each year, washed out burrows the volunteers had spent months preparing.' (i) Summarise the steps taken to protect the storm-petrel.
(ii) Summarise the obstacles the project faced. Use your own words, be concise, and take your points only from the passage. Keep the whole response within the word limit the 0500 summary task sets; see the specimen paper on the Cambridge International website.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Treat the two parts separately. For (i), list the actions: clearing rats over two winters, building low stone walls for cover, and playing recorded calls to attract birds.
For (ii), list the obstacles: high cost, the risk of a single rat reinvading, slow breeding, impatient funders and worsening storms. Reword each concisely and keep the two lists apart.
Model opening: (i) To protect the storm-petrel, the trust spent two winters removing the rats that had long eaten the eggs, and built low stone walls to shelter the chicks from gulls.
Checklist:
- Kept the two required contents clearly separate
- Found all the steps for part (i)
- Found all the obstacles for part (ii)
- Used my own words and avoided repetition
- Kept the whole response within the word limit the paper sets
4Read the passage below, which we wrote for this exercise, then write a summary. 'The proposed cable car up Bukit Chandan divides the town. Its backers point out that the road bends forty times and defeats the elderly and the very young, while a gondola would carry them to the summit temple in minutes.
Traders at the top, who currently see only the fittest hikers, expect trade to rise sharply. The line would run on the grid, they add, replacing a stream of diesel vans. Opponents are unconvinced.
The towers must be sunk into a slope that already slips in heavy rain, and the survey work alone means felling a strip of old forest. The fare, they argue, will price out the very townspeople the scheme claims to serve, leaving a queue of day-trippers and a quiet the hill will never have again. And a machine, once built, must be fed with visitors, whatever that does to the shrine's calm.' Summarise both the advantages of the cable car and the concerns raised against it, in your own words and as concisely as you can. Draw only on the passage, and stay within the word limit the summary task sets; check the 0500 specimen paper on the Cambridge International website.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Draw two sets of points from across the text. Advantages: easier access for the elderly and young, a much faster trip than the winding road, more trade for summit stalls, and cleaner running than diesel vans.
Concerns: an unstable, slip-prone slope, felling old forest, a fare that excludes locals, lost tranquillity, and pressure to keep feeding visitors to the shrine. Reword and stay concise.
Model opening: Supporters argue the cable car would give the elderly and the very young easy access to the summit, replacing a road of forty bends with a journey of only a few minutes.
Checklist:
- Covered both advantages and concerns as the task requires
- Gathered points from across the whole passage, not one half
- Reworded each point in my own words
- Did not repeat a point or add my own opinion
- Kept within the word limit the summary task sets
See the method and an annotated model on the summary & directed response page for Cambridge International 0500, or the technique in our summary & directed response skills guide.