How To Improve Your PTE Summarize Written Text Score – Tips & Strategies

Summarize Written Text can be a difficult task but if you keep some basic information in mind, you can write a masterpiece. In this post, we will provide you some useful hints and tips on how to construct and write a good summary.

General Tips To Improve Summary Writing

1. Thoroughly read and understand the text carefully. When you read it, you will get the feeling for the author’s style, tone, and mood.

2. Identify main ideas and supporting ideas – You have to summarize only key information, write down all the key points. Words that are repeated several times are likely to be keywords. You just have to include one main idea & at most 2-3 supporting ideas. That’s all. Don’t stuff the summary with unnecessary information.

Let’s check this paragraph and then we will write its summary.

Computers have become a necessity for both small and large businesses today. It takes a computer less than a second to retrieve information that takes a person several hours to obtain. It is for this reason that banks, airlines, and fast food restaurants rely so heavily on them. In addition, computers can store large amounts of data in a relatively small space. Because of this, offices need less storage space equipment such as file cabinets and supply closets.

You need to find to find the main idea and supporting ideas from this paragraph.

Main Idea – Computers have become a necessity for both small and large businesses today.

[Please note: It is not necessary that the first sentence will be your main idea.]

Supporting Idea 1 – Computer less than a second to retrieve information

Supporting Idea 2 – Computers can store large amounts of data in a relatively small space

3. Rewrite using complex sentences – As per PTE guidelines, you have to summarize the passage and give your response using one sentence between 5 and 75 words. So it is necessary that you learn to write complex sentences. Use conjunctions and adverbs to combine your notes.

Please keep in mind that ‘Paraphrasing’ is very important. Don’t copy the exact words from the paragraph; always rewrite the information in your own words.

Below is a list of the most commonly used linking words:

while	after	though	because	as soon as	until
where	even though	whether	whereas	wherever	when
before	if	although	since	unless	so that

The short summary for above paragraph would be:

Computers are important for businesses because of their speed in retrieving information and their ability to store large amounts of data in small spaces.

In the summary, you can see that ‘because’ is being used as a connector.

4. Practice – The most important thing now is to practice. Get into the habit of identifying key points and summarizing them in one sentence. We have a large collection of ‘summarize written text’ samples, you can start practicing them.

Scoring Guide

Your score in Summarize Written depends upon 4 things – Content, Form, Grammar & Vocabulary. But the most important is content. If no response or irrelevant response is given, you will get a zero straight away. If you have provided an acceptable response then your content will be scored on ‘form’. Then after your response will be scored for grammar and vocabulary.

1. Content – You get full marks if you provide a good summary (good summary means that it should cover all relevant aspects). Partial credit, if your summary misses one or two aspects. No marks, if your summary misses the main aspect of the text.

2. Form – Full marks if you write your summary in one sentence. You get zero if you write more than one sentence or your sentence contains fewer than 5 or more than 75 words.

3. Grammar – Full credit if you use correct grammatical structure. Partial credit if your sentence contains grammatical errors but with no hindrance to communication. No marks, if your sentence has a defective grammatical structure which could hinder communication.

4. Vocabulary – Full credit if your sentence has the appropriate choice of words. Partial credit if you sentence has lexical errors but with no hindrance to communication. No credit if your sentence has defective word choice which could hinder communication.

We have provided you the ultimate guide to scoring higher in “summarize written text”.  Subscribe us for free PTE Academic exam preparation materials straight to your inbox. Leave your comment if you have any query related to PTE exam in the comment section below.