Exercises that can check summarizing skills are:
- Summary completion / Gap-filling (with or without given words)
- Paragraph matching
- Summary information selection
A. SUMMARY COMPLETION
Complete the short summary below using words from the paragraph on the causes of storms.
Whatever the cause of a storm, there has to be lightning. You cannot have thunder without lightning because thunder is the result of outspreading pressure waves from the sudden heating of the air along a lightning flash. How storms develop such immense amounts of electric charge is still not fully understood but the most likely way is by raindrops carried skywards in updraughts in the clouds. As they are lifted into the higher, colder regions they freeze on the outside. The shell of ice compresses the water inside it to the point at which it eventually bursts out and instantly freezes into positively charged slivers of ice.
| Scientists are still unsure how the (1) is produced during storms but they suspect that it is the result of (2) reaching the lower clouds and then (3) as it travels further upwards. |
Answer Key:
EXERCISE 2
One doctor who has studied the problem of absenteeism from school to work says that the people who stay at home are not necessarily sicker than those who go to school or work. He says that people's perceptions of illness differ greatly. Two people may suffer from the same degree of sickness but one may decide to go to work and the other to stay at home.
Of course, certain people will stay at home at the slightest excuse. Once an employee apologized for not going to work because he had sprained his finger when he put a disk into his computer! Another had been attacked by a shark in lake! Some people even stay away because they are feeling "mentally unwell". Many reasons for absences are so vague as to be meaningless. When a woman employee stays off work because of "female problems", for example, no male boss dare ask what those problems are.
The flu, influenza, is probably the most common cause of absenteeism, according to surveys conducted in the past few years. The common cold, however, does not account for as many absences as its name would suggest. Broken arms and legs, sprains and strains caused by sports and physical exercise are also the cause of many absences. And poor people tend to be absent more often than rich people. This is probably explained by the fact that poor people have low paying jobs and feel less responsible to their employer. Men who are approaching retirement age or who are about to change jobs stay at home more days than most other people.
Absences because of sickness are usually more enjoyable than a vacation which has been planned. There is no list of things for you to do. Because you feel too ill to eat a normal meal, who can blame you for relaxing and watching television all day! You can stay at home and be free from life's cares and worries for at least a day! Moreover, at the same time, there is often someone who will attend to every thing you may need and express constant concern about your health. What could be better?
Finish the following sentences for a summary of the text.
| According to the doctor, absentees are not (1) . Some people give silly excuses for (2) . Most absentees are caused by (3) and (4) . Because poor people have lower paying jobs than rich people, they (5) . Other people frequently absent are (6) . Being absent because of sickness can be enjoyable because (7) . |
Answer Key:
EXERCISE 3
| THE PANDA’S LAST CHANCE |
A. The giant panda, the creature that has become a symbol of conservation, is facing extinction. The major reason is loss of habitat, which has continued despite the establishment, since 1963, of 14 panda reserves. Deforestation, mainly carried out by farmers clearing land to make way for fields as they move higher into the mountains, has drastically contracted the mammal’s range. The panda has disappeared from much of central and eastern B. Satellite imagery has shown the seriousness of the situation; almost half of the panda’s habitat has been cut or degraded since 1975. Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented; a combination of satellite imagery and ground surveys reveals panda “islands” in patches of forest separated by cleared land. The population of these islands, ranging fewer than ten to more than 50 pandas, has become isolated because the animals are loath to cross open areas. Just putting a road through panda habitat may be enough to split a population in two.
C. The minuscule size of the panda populations worries conservationists. The smallest groups have too few animals to be viable, and will inevitably die out. The larger populations may be viable in the short term, but will be susceptible to genetic defects as a result of inbreeding.
D. In these circumstances, a more traditional threat to pandas - the cycle of flowering and subsequent withering of the bamboo that is their staple food - can become literally species-threatening. The flowerings prompt pandas to move from one area to another, thus preventing inbreeding in otherwise sedentary populations. In panda islands, however, bamboo flowering could prove catastrophic because the pandas are unable to emigrate.
E. The latest conservation management plan for the panda, prepared by
F. The plan is ambitious. Implementation will be expensive - Yuan 56.6 million (US$ 12.5 million) will be needed for the development of the panda reserves - and will require participation by individuals ranging from villagers to government officials.
Below is a summary of the reading passage. Complete the summary by choosing words from the box following the summary. Note that there are more words than spaces so you will not use them all. You may use any word more than once.
| The survival of the giant panda is being seriously threatened. Panda numbers have already seriously (1) . This is largely because the overall size of their habitat has been reduced and habitable areas are now (2) from each other. Two results are that pandas are more prone to genetic (3) and are unable to move around freely to follow the (4) cycles of the bamboo that they eat. A new plan is aiming to protect the existing panda habitats and to (5) many of them. This plan also includes reforestation and the creation of the new (6) . To succeed, everyone, including both the government and individuals, will have to (7). |
| survival disconnected dominated decreased problems join increased growth reserves food cooperate disconnect |
Answer Key:
B. PARAGRAPH MATCHING
EXERCISE 1
| Bargains |
2. I have never attended a large company's board meeting in my life, but I feel certain that the discussion often takes the following lines. The cost of producing a new - for example - toothpaste would make 80p, the decent price for it, so we will market it at £1.20. It is not a bad toothpaste (not specially good either, but not bad), and as people like to try new things it will sell well to start with ; but the attraction of novelty soon fades, so sales will fall. When that starts to happen we will reduce the price to £1.15. And we will turn it into a bargain by printing 5p OFF all over it, whereupon people will rush to buy it even though it still costs about forty-three per cent more than its fair price.
3. Sometime it is not 5p OFF but 1p OFF. What breathtaking impertinence to advertise 1p OFF your soap or washing powder or dog food or whatever. Even the poorest old-age pensioner ought to regard this as an insult, but he doesn't. A bargain must not be missed. To be offered a 'gift' of one penny is like being invited to dinner and offered one single pea (tastily cooked), and nothing else. Even if it represented a real reduction it would be an insult.
4. Still, people say, one has to have washing powder (or whatever) and one might as well buy it a penny cheaper. When I was a boy in
5. The real danger starts when utterly unnecessary things become 'bargains'. There is a huge number of people who just cannot resist bargains and sales. Provided they think they are getting a bargain they will buy clothes they will never wear, furniture they have no space for. Old ladies will buy roller-skates and non - smokers will buy pipe- cleaners. And I once heard of a man who bought an electric circular saw as a bargain and cut off two of his fingers the next day. But he had no regrets: the saw had been truly cheap.
6. Quite a few people actually believe that they make money on such bargains. A lady I know, otherwise a charming and seemingly sane girl, sometimes tells me stories such as this : "I've had a lucky day today. I bought a dress for £120, reduced from 400; I bought a suitcase for £40, reduced from £120 and I bought a beautiful Persian carpet for 600, reduced from £900". Perhaps she may add vaguely that she has been a trifle extravagant, but it will never occur to her that she has actually wasted £760. She feels as though she has made £660. She also feels, I am sure, that if she had more time for shopping, she could make a living out of it.
7. Some people buy in bulk because it is cheaper. At certain moments
8. To offer bargains is a commercial trick to make the poor poorer. When greedy fools fall for this trick, it serves them right. All the same, if bargains were prohibited by law our standard of living would immediately rise by 7.39 per cent.
The reading passage has 8 paragraphs. For each paragraph, find a matching summary below. Note that there are more summaries than paragraphs.
| 1. | a) How a new product is sold |
| 2. | b) Buying in large quantities |
| 3. | c) Defining what a 'bargain' is |
| 4. | d) How the writer feels about people who waste money on bargains |
| 5. | e) An unusual way of 'making' money |
| 6. | f) Things people buy just because they are bargains |
| 7. | g) How people react to small price reductions |
| 8. | |
Answer Key:
EXERCISE 2
| The Grand Embankment |
1 No country is as profoundly influenced by water as 2 The great rivers carry soil sediment from the
3 For much of the year there is too little water. When the monsoon breaks, the flat landscape changes completely. Boats replace bicycles as the means of local transport and deepwater rice flourishes with the rising floodwaters. All of this is essential for the farming season. But when rainfall is exceptional and floodwaters rise higher than normal, the effects can devastate.
4 The farmers of
5 After the disastrous floods in 1988 the
6 The French proposal was for embankments up to seven metres high to be built along the length of all the major rivers. They estimated the cost at $10 000 million up front and $150 million for annual repair and maintenance. Such expenditure would plunge the country into massive debt and divert money from other programmes.
7 By no means all the potential investors thought this was the answer. In the end the World Bank was asked to formulate an action plan. They did so, unveiling it in
8 Many informed observers are extremely sceptical about the scheme. Despite assurances from the World Bank’s Vice-President for Aisa, Atilla Karaosmanoglu, that ‘the people of Bangladesh will be consulted at every stage,’ the British aid agencies involved in disaster relief after the 1988 floods do not believe that people at the grass roots will be adequately involved. By what line of communication can the planners conceivably consult the poor?
9 Steve Jones, the European Community’s advisor on the action-plan team says that the embankments are bound to have a huge social impact. Under the French proposal, around 20000 hectares of land would be requisitioned and 180000 people affected. Some households would lose everything, adding their numbers to
10 Jones also points out that the embankments will take decades to complete and other flood-protection measures - improved flood warning, better disaster management - will be needed.
11 No-one knows more about managing the flood waters than the Bangladeshi people who live perched above them and whose welfare depends upon them. And it is essential that ‘expert’ brought in to help should be ready to learn from the existing ‘experts’. They ingenuity includes floating hen coops and mesh fences to stop fish escaping from flooded fish ponds. Ideas like these could be more widely promoted.
12 Meanwhile there will be profound environmental effects from canalizing such vast bodies of water. Every step forward on the grand embankment plan will have to be watched with care.
Annette Bingham is a specialist in water issues and Asian affairs.
The reading passage has 12 paragraphs. For each paragraph, find a matching summary from the box below.
| 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. | A. An expensive proposal B. Doubts about Bangladeshi involvement C. The strong influence of water in D. Disastrous floods E. The plan’s effect on people F. Time and other problems G. Advice from many groups on flood control H. Environmental effects of the plan I. The good and bad effects of rivers on J. Over-population problems K. Poor farming techniques L. The effect of water changes with the seasons M. Local expertise N. Putting the proposal into effect |
Answer Key:
C. SUMMARY INFORMATION SELECTION
EXERCISE 1
| Island Plant Life |
Islands are geographical formations that are completely surrounded by water, yet many islands are covered with a rich assortment of plant life. It may seem surprising that so much plant life exists on many islands, yet there are surprisingly simple explanations as to how the vegetation has been able to establish itself there. Some islands were formerly attached to larger bodies of land, while others were created on their own. Islands that were created when flooding or rising water levels cut them off from their neighbors often still have the plant life that they had before they were cut off. In cases where islands formed out of the ocean, they may have plant life from neighboring lands even though they were never actually attached to the neighboring lands. Winds carry many seeds to islands; some plants produce extremely light seeds that can float thousands of feet above the Earth and then drift down to islands where they can sprout and develop. Birds also carry seeds to islands; as birds move over open stretches of water, they can serve as the transportation system to spread seeds from place to place.| This passage discusses the ways that plant life is able to develop on islands. |
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Answer choices: (choose 3 to complete the chart)
1. Some seeds are able to float great distances in the air.2. Some plant life existed before islands were cut off from larger bodies of land.
3. Some islands have many different varieties of plants.
4. Birds sometimes carry seeds to islands.
5. Some islands were created when rising water cut them off from larger bodies of land.
6. Some plant seeds are carried to islands by the wind.
Answer Key:
EXERCISE 2
| Ben and Jerry |
They were rather unconventional from the start, not choosing to begin their careers by attending one of the elite business schools but instead choosing to take a five-dollar correspondence course from
Even though they became extremely successful, they did not convert to a more conventional style of doing business. In an era where companies were measured on every penny of profit that they managed to squeeze out, Ben and Jerry had a strong belief that business should give back to the community; thus, they donated 7.5 percent of their pretax profit to social causes that they believed in. They also lacked the emphasis on executive salary and benefits packages that so preoccupy other corporations, opting instead for a five-to-one policy in which the salary of the employee receiving the highest pay could never be more than five times the salary of the employee receiving the lowest pay.
| This passage discusses Ben and Jerry’s unconventional company |
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1. They each had a personal commitment to social causes.
2. They began their business with little background and investment.
3. They believed strongly in producing a very high-quality product.
4. They had a salary structure that limits the salaries of high-level executives.
5. They set aside a noteworthy portion of their profits for social causes.
6. They borrowed several thousand dollars from friends to start their business.
Answer Key:
EXERCISE 3
| The Bald Eagle |
When the bald eagle became the national symbol of the The demise of the bald eagle is generally attributed to the effects of the pesticide DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane). This pesticide was used to kill insects harmful to agriculture, thereby increasing agricultural production. One unintended negative result of the use of DDT was that, while it did get rid of the undesirable insects, it also made its way along the food chain into fish, a favorite food source of the bald eagle.
The bald eagle is now protected by federal laws. It was originally protected by the Bald Eagle Act of 1940 and later by the Endangered species Act of 1973. However, it is not just the laws directly related to endangered species that aided in the resurgence of the bald eagle; its resurgence has also been widely attributed to the banning of DDT in 1972. Today there are more than 5,000 pairs of bald eagles, a tenfold increase over the low point of 450, and the bird was removed from the list of endangered species in July, 1999.
| This passage discusses radical shifts in population that the bald eagle has undergone. |
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1. The numbers of bald eagles were greatly reduced, at least in part due to the effects of a pesticide.
2. The legislation has had a positive effect on the number of bald eagles.
3. The bald eagle was named as the national symbol of the
4. Early in the history of the
5. Two different pieces of legislation that affected the bald eagle were enacted 33 years apart.
6. The federal government enacted legislation specifically designed to protect the bald eagle as well as to outlaw the pesticide DDT.
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