United States
Hong KongSummarizing a passage
Skill 6 reads "Summarize one or more texts using key supporting ideas and details". A summary covers the whole passage, keeps proportion, drops examples, and adds nothing. Three of the four options on a summary item will break exactly one of those conditions.
A summary question looks like a main-idea question and is scored differently. The main idea is one claim. A summary is the passage in miniature, and miniature means proportional.
Four conditions
| Condition | What breaking it looks like |
|---|---|
| Covers the whole text | An option that stops after the second paragraph |
| Keeps proportion | An option that spends half its length on a single example |
| Drops examples and repetition | An option that lists every statistic in the passage |
| Adds nothing | An option that draws a conclusion the passage did not |
That last one is the interesting failure. A summary is not an evaluation. An option that says the author's argument is persuasive has added a judgment, and judgment belongs to a different competency.
How to build one under time pressure
- Give each paragraph a three-word label as you read
- Ask what the labels have in common; that is the spine
- Write the spine plus the two or three labels that carry the argument forward
- Check that nothing in your version is absent from the passage
You will not literally write this in the exam. You are doing it in your head at about 1.83 minutes a question, which is what 30 questions in 55 minutes works out to on our division of the published figures. The habit is what carries over.
A passage describes a state grant program: two paragraphs on how districts apply and are scored, one paragraph giving one district's successful application as an illustration, and a final paragraph noting that small districts apply at lower rates. Which is the best summary?
- One district won a grant by documenting its needs carefully and submitting early.
- A state grant program scores district applications against set criteria, and although the process is open to all, small districts apply less often.
- The state runs a grant program that is unfair to small districts and should be reformed.
- The grant program requires an application, a scoring process, supporting documentation, deadlines, and a review panel, and one district submitted early.
Summary against paraphrase
A paraphrase restates something in different words at the same length. A summary is shorter by design. On an item that offers one option roughly as long as the passage and one much shorter, length alone is a weak signal, but a "summary" that has lost almost nothing is a paraphrase and is usually wrong.
Multiple texts again
The skill says "one or more texts", so a paired-passage item can ask for a summary that covers both. The proportion condition then applies across the pair: a summary that captures passage one in full and mentions passage two in a clause has failed, even if everything in it is accurate.
A small opinion
Summary is the most transferable skill on this subtest and the one worth practicing outside test conditions. Summarize a news article in two sentences every morning for a fortnight and you will feel it on the main-idea, development and synthesis items too, all of which live in different competencies of the same 30-question paper.
What we cannot tell you is how many summary items you will see. FLDOE publishes the subtest total and nothing beneath it, and skill 6 is one of the eight skills in a competency we estimate at about 14 questions. That estimate is ours.
Common questions
What makes a good summary on the FTCE?
It covers the whole passage, keeps the same proportions, drops examples and repetition, and adds nothing that is not in the text. Three of the four options on a summary item will each break exactly one of those conditions.
What is the difference between a summary and a main idea?
A main idea is one sentence saying what the passage claims. A summary is the passage in miniature, including the key supporting ideas in the same proportion. The rule names them as two different skills, 5 and 6, under the same competency.
Can a summary include a judgment about the passage?
No. An option that says the argument is persuasive, unfair or well supported has added an evaluation the passage did not make. Evaluating claims belongs to Competency 3 of the Reading subtest, not to the summary skill.
Is a paraphrase the same as a summary?
No. A paraphrase restates the text at roughly the same length in different words. A summary is shorter by design. An option that has lost almost nothing from the original is a paraphrase and is usually the wrong answer on a summary item.