Summarise Written Text most repeated PTE Real Exam Questions

Writing: Summarise Written Text

Attention: JAN 2022-JUNE 2022 some most repeated PTE Real Exam Questions

04 July 2022 Updates

1) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

It was once assumed that all living things could be divided into two fundamental and exhaustive categories. Multicellular plants and animals, as well as many unicellular organisms, are eukaryotic—their large, complex cells have a well-formed nucleus and many organelles. On the other hand, the true bacteria are a prokaryotic cell, which is simple and lack a nucleus. The distinction between eukaryotes and bacteria, initially defined in terms of subcellular structures visible with a microscope, was ultimately carried to the molecular level. Here prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells have many features in common. For instance, they translate genetic information into proteins according to the same type of genetic coding. But even where the molecular processes are the same, the details in the two forms are different and characteristic of the respective forms. For example, the amino acid sequences of various enzymes tend to be typically prokaryotic or eukaryotic. The differences between the groups and the similarities within each group made it seem certain to most biologists that the tree of life had only two stems. Moreover, arguments pointing out the extent of both structural and functional differences between eukaryotes and true bacteria convinced many biologists that the precursors of the eukaryotes must have diverged from the common ancestor before the bacteria arose.

Although much of this picture has been sustained by more recent research, it seems fundamentally wrong in one respect. Among the bacteria, there are organisms that are significantly different both from the cells of eukaryotes and from the true bacteria, and it now appears that there are three stems in the tree of life. New techniques for determining the molecular sequence of the RNA of organisms have produced evolutionary information about the degree to which organisms are related, the time since they diverged from a common ancestor, and the reconstruction of ancestral versions of genes. These techniques have strongly suggested that although the true bacteria indeed form a large coherent group, certain other bacteria, the archaebacteria, which are also prokaryotes and which resemble true bacteria, represent a distinct evolutionary branch that far antedates the common ancestor of all true bacteria.

2) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Americans in the mid-nineteenth century could point to plenty of examples, real as well as mythical, of self-made men who by dint of “industry, prudence, perseverance, and good economy” had risen ” to competence, and then to affluence.” With the election of Abraham Lincoln, they could point to one who had risen from a log cabin to the White House.” I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired labourer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat-just what might happen to any poor man’s son!” Lincoln told an audience at New Haven in 1860. But in the free states, a man knew that “he can better his condition… there is no such thing as a freeman being fatally fixed for life, in the condition of a hired labourer.” “Wage slave” was a contradiction in terms, said Lincoln.” The man who laboured for another last year, this year labours for himself, and next year he will hire others to labour for him.” If a man” continue through life in the condition of the hired labourer, it is not the fault of the system, but because of either a dependent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular misfortune.” The “free labour system”, concluded Lincoln,” opens the way for all- gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all.”

3) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

A farming technique practised for centuries by villagers in West Africa, which converts nutrient-poor rainforest soil into fertile farmland, could be the answer to mitigating climate change and revolutionising farming across Africa. A global study by researchers has for the first time identified and analysed rich fertile soils found in Liberia and Ghana. They discovered that the ancient West African method of adding charcoal and kitchen waste to highly weathered, nutrient-poor tropical soils can transform the land into enduringly fertile, carbon-rich black soils which the researchers dub ‘African Dark Earths’. Similar soils created by Amazonian people in pre-Columbian eras have recently been discovered in South America — but the techniques people used to create these soils are unknown. Moreover, the activities which led to the creation of these anthropogenic soils were largely disrupted after the European conquest.

Encouragingly researchers in the West Africa study were able to live within communities as they created their fertile soils. This enabled them to learn the techniques used by the women from the indigenous communities who disposed of ash, bones and other organic waste to create the African Dark Earths

4) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

A democratic country should have the right to decide whether to vote or not. It is strange that after decades of crawling up the political backside of the US, Australians don’t have that right. Being fined for not voting reminds me of the old saying “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink”. The fine is not for failing to vote but for failing to have your name marked off a list! Forcing people to make a decision just means they’ll make the easiest, quickest decision they can, not the best one. You need an informed electorate for compulsory voting to work. However, the reality is that nobody knows anything about the candidates and promotional material is not readily available. I’d rather 80% of people didn’t vote than have them all just pick the first recognizable name on the ballot sheet. Then at least the government is elected by the 20% who care and make informed decisions. Otherwise, it is largely pot chance who gets elected. Furthermore, compulsory voting doesn’t ensure that the entire electorate is engaged in the democratic process. Those who don’t want to vote can simply turn up and get their name marked off, without even putting pencil to paper. But you’re seriously deluding yourself if you think that this is what all those who don’t care about government do when they turn up to the polling booth. Voluntary voting at least ensures those who vote are the ones that care enough to do so. Perhaps somebody could enlighten me as to the reason why, to the best of my knowledge, Australia is the only ‘democracy’ that has compulsory voting. It is certainly not compulsory in the USA, England, Canada, and New Zealand, Philippines or any other European or Asian democracy that I am aware of. Compulsory voting is, however, mandatory in most communist regimes.

5) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

It’s very easy to forget about what’s in the ground beneath our feet and why it’s so important to protect it. One tablespoon of soil contains more organisms than there are people on Earth; billions of bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms combine with minerals, water, air and organic matter to create a living system that supports plants and, in turn, all life. Healthy soil can store as much as 3,750 tons of water per hectare, reducing the risk of flooding, and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that 89% of all agricultural emissions could be mitigated if we improved the health of our soil. Good soil management also increases disease resistance in livestock and ultimately drives profits for farmers – yet soil and its impact on the health of our animals has, over recent decades, been one of the most neglected links in UK agriculture. Over the last 50 years’ agriculture has become increasingly dependent on chemical fertilizers, with applications today around 10 times higher than in the 1950s. Farmers often think the chemical fertilizer NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium) provides all the nutrition a plant requires, but it also has a detrimental effect on the long-term health of the land: research suggests there are fewer than 100 harvests left in many of the world’s soils.

6) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

One of Guinness World Records’ more unusual awards was presented at the National Maritime Museum yesterday. After a 100-day trial, the timepiece known as Clock B – which had been sealed in a clear plastic box to prevent tampering – was officially declared, by Guinness, to be the world’s “most accurate mechanical clock with a pendulum swinging in free air”. It was an intriguing enough award. But what is really astonishing is that the clock was designed more than 250 years ago by a man who was derided at the time for “an incoherence and absurdity that was little short of the symptoms of insanity”, and whose plans for the clock lay ignored for two centuries. The derision was poured on John Harrison, the British clockmaker whose marine chronometers had revolutionized seafaring in the 18th century (and who was the subject of Longitude by Dava Sobel). His subsequent claim – that he would go on to make a pendulum timepiece that was accurate to within a second over a 100-day period – triggered widespread ridicule. The task was simply impossible, it was declared. But now the last laugh lies with Harrison. At a conference, Harrison Decoded: Towards a Perfect Pendulum Clock, held at Greenwich yesterday, observatory scientists revealed that a clock that had been built to the clockmaker’s exact specifications had run for 100 days during official tests and had lost only five-eighths of a second in that period.

7) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, he surely didn’t anticipate that children would end up becoming some of its main users. Most start using the internet at the average age of three – and as recent research shows, children now spend more time playing and socializing online than watching television programs. Given this change in habits, it is not surprising that a recent House of Lords report has raised online safety and behavior as an important issue. The report said that for children, learning to survive in a world dominated by the internet should be as important as reading and writing. The House of Lords Communications Committee also warned that children should not be leaving school without “a well-rounded understanding of the digital world”. It also suggested that the government should think about implementing new legal requirements and a code of conduct companies would have to adhere to, which would help to bring the internet up to “child friendly standards”. Of course, trying to rectify this lack of child-centered design is not an easy task, but one that requires the cooperation and goodwill of many sectors. It will need to involve consultation with technology, education, legal and policy experts. And it would also be a good idea to make children and young people part of the process.

8) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

Contrary to popular belief, babies under a few months don’t grin at you because they’re copying your own smile, according to new research. Many studies have indicated that from birth, infants imitate the behaviors and facial expressions of the adults around them. However, a team of Australian, South African and British researchers have released a study this week that refutes this widespread belief.”Numerous studies from the 1980s and 90s indicated no imitation by newborns, while others claimed it was there,” says Virginia Slaughter, a biologist at the University of Queensland and co-author of the study.”We wanted to clear up the confusion because the ‘fact’ that newborns imitate is widely cited, not just in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and pediatrics, but also in popular sources for parents.”

The international research team, led by Janine Oostenbroek, a psychologist at the University of York in the UK, exposed more than 100 infants to a broad range of gestures and recorded their responses at one, two, six and nine weeks of age.The gestures included social cues like adults poking their tongues out, frowning or grinning, as well as non-social cues such as pointing or opening a box. The findings showed no link between behaviors exhibited by babies in their first few months and the gestures they were exposed to. The babies were just as likely to exhibit gestures they had never seen before as repeat ones they had. For instance, babies stuck their tongues out just as frequently if they were being exposed to pointing or opening a box, rather than anything to do with mouths or tongues.

9) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

To understand the final reason why the news marketplace of ideas dominated by television is so different from the one that emerged in the world dominated by the printing press, it is important to distinguish the quality of vividness experienced by television viewers from the “vividness” experienced by readers. I believe that the vividness experienced in the reading of words is automatically modulated by the constant activation of the reasoning centers of the brain that are used in the process of concreating the representation of reality the author has intended. By contrast, the visceral vividness portrayed on television has the capacity to trigger instinctual responses similar to those triggered by reality itself—and without being modulated by logic, reason, and reflective thought.

The simulation of reality accomplished in the television medium is so astonishingly vivid and compelling compared with the representations of reality conveyed by printed words that it signifies much more than an incremental change in the way people consume information. Books also convey compelling and vivid representations of reality, of course. But the reader actively participates in the conjuring of the reality the book’s author is attempting to depict. Moreover, the parts of the human brain that are central to the reasoning process are continually activated by the very act of reading printed words: Words are composed of abstract symbols—letters— that have no intrinsic meaning themselves until they are strung together into recognizable sequences. Television, by contrast, presents to its viewers a much more fully formed representation of reality—without requiring the creative collaboration that words have always demanded.

10) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

Most of the time when I embark on such an investigation, it quickly becomes clear that matters are much more complicated and ambiguous — several shades grayer — than I thought to go in. Not this time. The deeper I delved into the confused and confusing thicket of nutritional science, sorting through the long-running fats versus carb wars, the fiber skirmishes and the raging dietary supplement debates, the simpler the picture gradually became. I learned that in fact, science knows a lot less about nutrition than you would expect – that in fact, nutrition science is, to put it charitably, a very young science. It’s still trying to figure out exactly what happens in your body when you sip a soda, or what is going on deep in the soul of a carrot to make it so good for you, or why in the world you have so many neurons – brain cells! – in your stomach, of all places. It’s a fascinating subject, and someday the field may produce definitive answers to the nutritional questions that concern us, but — as nutritionists themselves will tell you — they’re not there yet. Not even close. Nutrition science, which after all only got started less than two hundred years ago, is today approximately where surgery was in the year 1650 – very promising, and very interesting to watch, but are you ready to let them operate on you? I think I’ll wait for awhile.

11) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

Architecture, the art of building in which human requirements and construction materials are related so as to furnish practical use as well as an aesthetic solution, thus differing from the pure utility of engineering construction. As an art, architecture is essentially abstract and nonrepresentational and involved the manipulation of the relationships of spaces, volumes, planes, masses, and voids. Time is also an important factor in architecture since a building is usually comprehended in a succession of experiences rather than all at once. In most architecture, there is no one vantage point from which the whole structure can be understood. The use of light and shadow, as well as surface decoration, can greatly enhance a structure.

The analysis of building types provides insight into past cultures and eras. Behind each of the greater styles lies not a casual trend nor a vogue, but a period of serious and urgent experimentation directed toward answering the needs of a specific way of life. Climate, methods of labour, available materials, and economy of means all impose their dictates. Each of the greater styles has been aided by the discovery of new construction methods. Once developed, a method survives tenaciously, giving way only when social changes or new building techniques have reduced it. That evolutionary process is ex-amplified by the history of modern architecture, which developed from the first uses of structural iron and steel in the mid-19th cent.

12) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Ethics is a set of moral obligations that define right and wrong in our practices and decisions. Many professions have a formalized system of ethical practices that help guide professionals in the field. For example, doctors commonly take the Hippocratic Oath, which, among other things, states that doctors “do no harm” to their patients. Engineers follow an ethical guide that states that they “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.” Within these professions, as well as within science, the principles become so ingrained that practitioners rarely have to think about adhering to the ethic – it’s part of the way they practice. And a breach of ethics is considered very serious, punishable at least within the profession (by revocation of a license, for example) and sometimes by the law as well.

Scientific ethics calls for honesty and integrity in all stages of scientific practice, from reporting results regardless to properly attributing collaborators. This system of ethics guides the practice of science, from data collection to publication and beyond. As in other professions, the scientific ethic is deeply integrated into the way scientists work, and they are aware that the reliability of their work and scientific knowledge, in general, depends upon adhering to that ethic. Many of the ethical principles in science relate to the production of unbiased scientific knowledge, which is critical when others try to build upon or extend research findings. The open publication of data, peer review, replication, and collaboration required by the scientific ethic all help to keep science moving forward by validating research findings and confirming or raising questions about results (see our module Scientific Literature for further information).

Some breaches of the ethical standards, such as fabrication of data, are dealt with by the scientific community through means similar to ethical breaches in other disciplines – removal from a job, for example. But less obvious challenges to the ethical standard occur more frequently, such as giving a scientific competitor a negative peer review. These incidents are more like parking in a no-parking zone – they are against the rules and can be unfair, but they often go unpunished. Sometimes scientists simply make mistakes that may appear to be ethical breaches, such as improperly citing a source or giving a misleading reference. And like any other group that shares goals and ideals, the scientific community works together to deal with all of these incidents as best as they can – in some cases with more success than others.

13) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

An international team of scientists, including a physiologist from The University of Manchester, will head to the largest island in the world later this month to investigate the Greenland shark – believed to be the longest-lived vertebrate animal. Dr Holly Shiels, who is also a trustee of the Physiological Society, will be the only UK-based scientist on the expedition aboard the research vessel Sanna commissioned by the Greenland government. The purpose of the mission is to understand more about the Greenland shark, a top predator in the Arctic, which lives for more than 272 years – possibly more than 400. This extreme age was only revealed by scientists from Copenhagen last year and published in the journal Science. Little else is known about how the shark survives in the deep seas around the Arctic Circle. It is both a hunter and a scavenger and has been seen to feed on seals and been found with the remains of polar bears and whales in its stomach. It is also one of the largest species of shark – growing to about five-and-a-half metres, just a bit smaller than the great white. However, more information is required to ensure the species is adequately protected, as Dr Shiels explained: “Greenland sharks are classified as data deficient,” she said. “This means that we don’t know enough to put measures in place to protect them from over-fishing, pollution or climate change. This expedition has a broad range of expertise which means that we’ll be able to take full advantage of any sharks that we discover.”

14) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

Brand loyalty exists when consumers repeat-purchase your brand rather than swapping and switching between brands. It is widely agreed that it is far more expensive to have to find a new customer than to keep existing ones happy, so brand loyalty is crucial for achieving high-profit margins. For charities, it is important to set a marketing objective of improving brand loyalty. If existing donors can be persuaded to set up a direct debit to the charity, its cash flow will improve significantly. Although some brands stay fresh for generations (Marmite is over 100 years old) others become jaded due to changes in consumer tastes and lifestyles. At this point, the firms need to refresh the brand image to keep the products relevant to the target market. A clear objective must be set. For instance: what brand attributes do we want to create? What do we want the brand to stand for? This occurs when a firm aims to change a brand’s image so that the brand appeals to a new target market. Twelve years into its life cycle, McVitie’s decided to reposition its Hobnobs biscuit brand. Hobnobs had been positioned as a homely, quite healthy biscuit for middle-aged consumers. The research pointed McVitie’s in a new direction: younger, more male, and less dull. So new packaging was designed and then launched in conjunction with a new, brighter advertising campaign. In 2013 Hobnobs sales were worth 36 million pounds, 9 percent up on the previous year.

15) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

Working nine to five for a single employer bears little resemblance to the way a substantial share of the workforce makes a living today. Millions of people assemble various income streams and work independently, rather than in structured payroll jobs. This is hardly a new phenomenon, yet it has never been well measured in official statistics—and the resulting data gaps prevent a clear view of a large share of labor-market activity.
To better understand the independent workforce and what motivates the people who participate in it, the McKinsey Global Institute surveyed some 8,000 respondents across Europe and the United States. We asked about their income in the past 12 months—encompassing primary work, as well as any other income-generating activities—and about their professional satisfaction and aspirations for work in the future.
The resulting report, Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy, finds that up to 162 million people in Europe and the United States—or 20 to 30 percent of the working-age population—engage in some form of independent work. While demographically diverse, independent workers largely fit into four segments (exhibit): free agents, who actively choose independent work and derive their primary income from it; casual earners, who use independent work for supplemental income and do so by choice; reluctants, who make their primary living from independent work but would prefer traditional jobs; and the financially strapped, who do supplemental independent work out of necessity.

16) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

Naps aren’t generally included in the litany of good-for-your-heart lifestyle choices recommended for lowering cardiovascular risk, but they may soon be. New research suggests a midday siesta may reduce a person’s risk of death from heart disease, possibly by lowering stress levels. The findings must be confirmed, but Dimitrios Trichopoulos, MD, a study author, tells us that there is little downside to taking naps — and there could be big health benefits. “The siesta is a victim of progress. Most of us aren’t in the position to take a daily nap,” he says. “But our research suggests that the practice could help protect the heart, and we need further studies to find out if this really is the case.”

Trichopoulos says the research stemmed from the observation that heart disease death rates are lower in Mediterranean and Latin American countries where midday siestas are part of the culture. His own earlier research in a Greek population provided weak evidence in favour of the nap hypothesis, but another, larger study, conducted in Costa Rica failed to show an association.

The newly published Greek study by Trichopoulosl and colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and Greece’s University of Athens Medical School is the largest ever to examine the issue in a previously healthy population. A total of 23,681 residents of Greece with no history of heart disease, stroke, or cancer at enrollment were followed an average of 6.3 years. And the study revealed that people who took naps at least three times a week for an average of at least 30 minutes were 37% less likely to die of heart disease than people who did not take regular naps.

17) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

18) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

19) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

20) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task.

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, he surely didn’t anticipate that children would end up becoming some of its main users. Most start using the internet at the average age of three – and as recent research shows, children now spend more time playing and socializing online than watching television programs. Given this change in habits, it is not surprising that a recent House of Lords report has raised online safety and behavior as an important issue. The report said that for children, learning to survive in a world dominated by the internet should be as important as reading and writing. The House of Lords Communications Committee also warned that children should not be leaving school without “a well-rounded understanding of the digital world”. It also suggested that the government should think about implementing new legal requirements and a code of conduct companies would have to adhere to, which would help to bring the internet up to “child-friendly standards”. Of course, trying to rectify this lack of child-centred design is not an easy task, but one that requires the cooperation and goodwill of many sectors. It will need to involve consultation with technology, education, legal and policy experts. And it would also be a good idea to make children and young people part of the process.

21) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Many insecurities, fears, and doubts stem from lack of understanding or lack of knowledge about something. The more you understand and know about a situation, the more comfortable you will be and thus the less power your shyness will have over you. Let’s take for example the subject of public speaking. This is an activity that terrifies most people half to death, but only because most people don’t have much knowledge about it. If you do some research and investigation, you’ll come to learn that it’s perfectly natural to be terrified of public speaking and that almost every single person has the same fears and insecurities that you do. When you take it further and ask yourself why you are so terrified of this, you’ll come to learn that you are scared of being judged, or of being laughed at. From there, you can go and read and learn about people who are good at public speaking—learn their tips and strategies. This way you are much more prepared because your knowledge on the subject is vast. As a result of this, your confidence will already be much higher than before, which might allow you to attempt public speaking when you join a club like Toastmasters. As you practice more, you will naturally become even more confident. This rule applies to any area where you feel insecure. Read and research as much about the topic as possible. This will help increase your confidence enough to give the activity a try to see if you might be able to become better at it. And that initial confidence to take action is all you need to get the ball rolling and overcome your shyness.

22) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Working nine to five for a single employer bears little resemblance to the way a substantial share of the workforce makes a living today. Millions of people assemble various income streams and work independently, rather than in structured payroll jobs. This is hardly a new phenomenon, yet it has never been well measured in official statistics—and the resulting data gaps prevent a clear view of a large share of labour-market activity. To better understand the independent workforce and what motivates the people who participate in it, the McKinsey Global Institute surveyed some 8,000 respondents across Europe and the United States. We asked about their income in the past 12 months—encompassing primary work, as well as any other income-generating activities—and about their professional satisfaction and aspirations for work in the future. The resulting report, Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy, finds that up to 162 million people in Europe and the United States—or 20 to 30 percent of the working-age population—engage in some form of independent work. While demographically diverse, independent workers largely fit into four segments (exhibit): free agents, who actively choose independent work and derive their primary income from it; casual earners, who use independent work for supplemental income and do so by choice; reluctance, who make their primary living from independent work but would prefer traditional jobs; and the financially strapped, who do supplemental independent work out of necessity.

23) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

According to researchers, the invisibility cloak illusion stems from the belief that we are much more socially observant than the people around us. This means that, while we watch and wonder about other people as much as possible, we often think that people around us are less aware. This illusion occurs because, while we are fully aware of our own impressions and speculations about other people, we have no idea what those other people are thinking unless they close to share with us, something that rarely happens except in exceptional circumstances.

To better understand what is happening, it is important to consider the groundbreaking research by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman on cognitive biases. When people make judgments about other people in social situations, they often depend on specific biases such as the availability heuristic, i.e., that we attach more significance to thoughts that come to mind easily. This is why we consider thoughts about other people as being more important than thoughts about inanimate objects. And so, as we look around us, we tend to focus our thoughts on the people we see and what they happen to be doing. Which is why people-watching can be so addictive.

What adds to the sense that we are relatively invisible to others is that people tend to be as discreet as possible about their people-watching. Just because other people aren’t sharing their observations with us, it’s easy to pretend that they are not as observant as we are. Of course, people many share their people-watching observations with anyone they happen to be with but, for the most part, that only applies to something remarkable enough to comment on. For most of us, what we are seeing tends to be extremely private and not to be shared with others.

24) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Here’s a term you’re going to hear much more often: plug-in vehicle, and the acronym PEV. It’s what you and many other people will drive to work in, ten years and more from now.

At that time, before you drive off in the morning you will first unplug your car – your plug-in vehicle. Its big onboard batteries will have been fully charged overnight, with enough power for you to drive 50-100 kilometres through city traffic.

When you arrive at work you’ll plug in your car once again, this time into a socket that allows power to flow from your car’s batteries to the electricity grid. One of the things you did when you bought your car was to sign a contract with your favourite electricity supplier, allowing them to draw a limited amount of power from your car’s batteries should they need to, perhaps because of a blackout, or very high wholesale spot power prices. The price you get for the power the distributor buys from your car would not only be most attractive to you, but it would also be a good deal for them too, their alternative being very expensive power form peaking stations.

If driving home or for some other reason your batteries looked like running flat, a relatively small, but quiet and efficient engine running on petrol, diesel or compressed natural gas, even biofuel, would automatically cut in, driving a generator that supplied the batteries so you could complete your journey.

Concerns over ‘peak oil’, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the likelihood that by the middle of this century there could be five times as many motor vehicles registered worldwide as there are now, mean that the world’s almost total dependence on petroleum-based fuels for transport is, in every sense of the word, unsustainable.

25) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Parents’ own birth order can become an issue when dynamics in the family they are raising replicate the family in which they were raised. Agati notes common examples, such as a firstborn parent getting into “raging battles” with a firstborn child. “Both are used to getting the last word. Each has to be right. But the parent has to be the grown-up and step out of that battle,” he advises. When youngest children become parents, Agati cautions that because they “may not have had high expectations placed on them, they in turn may not see their kids for their abilities.” But he also notes that since youngest children tend to be more social, “youngest parents can be helpful to their firstborn, who may have a harder time with social situations. These parents can help their eldest kids loosen up and not be so hard on themselves. Mom Susan Ritz says her own birth order didn’t seem to affect her parenting until the youngest of her three children, Julie, was born. Julie was nine years younger than Ritz’s oldest, Joshua, mirroring the age difference between Susan and her own older brother. “I would see Joshua do to Julie what my brother did to me,” she says of the taunting and teasing by a much older sibling.

“I had to try not to always take Julie’s side.” Biases can surface no matter what your own birth position was, as Lori Silverstone points out. “As a middle myself, I can be harder on my older daughter. I recall my older sister hitting me,” she says of her reactions to her daughters’ tussles.

“My husband is a firstborn. He’s always sticking up for the oldest. He feels bad for her that the others came so fast. He helps me to see what that feels like, to have that attention and then lose it.” Silverstone sees birth order triggers as “an opportunity to heal parts of ourselves. I’ve learned to teach my middle daughter to stand up for herself. My mother didn’t teach me that. I’m conscious of giving my middle daughter tools so she has a nice way to protect herself.”

Whether or not you subscribe to theories that birth order can affect your child’s personality, ultimately, “we all have free will,” Agati notes. It’s important for both parents and kids to realize that, despite the characteristics often associated with birth order, “you’re not locked into any role.”

26) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Mammals can be one of the hardest-hit groups by habitat loss, and a lot of research has been carried out to find the best ways to conserve mammal diversity. Much of this research has focussed on very large-scale changes in land use and the impacts this will have on overall mammal diversity. However, many important decisions about land use are made at much more local scales, for example at the level of individual landowners. Now, in a detailed study led by Imperial College London that looked at mammal diversity across different small-scale landscapes in Borneo, researchers have identified previously logged forests as an overlooked source of refuge for mammals.

These ‘selectively logged’ forests, where only certain tree species are removed, are often considered to be degraded and are frequently cleared to make way for plantations. The new results, published in the journal Ecological Applications, suggest they should be better protected. The team recorded mammals using trap-and-release techniques and motion-sensing cameras over three years, creating an unprecedented 20,000 records of species in three land-use types: old-growth forest logged forest and oil palm plantation.

To their surprise, they found that mammal diversity for large mammals, like the clouded leopard and civets, was similar for both old-growth forests and logged forests. For small mammals, such as squirrels and rodents, the diversity was actually higher in logged forests.

27) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Working nine to five for a single employer bears little resemblance to the way a substantial share of the workforce makes a living today. Millions of people assemble various income streams and work independently, rather than in structured payroll jobs. This is hardly a new phenomenon, yet it has never been well measured in official statistics—and the resulting data gaps prevent a clear view of a large share of labour-market activity.
To better understand the independent workforce and what motivates the people who participate in it, the McKinsey Global Institute surveyed some 8,000 respondents across Europe and the United States. We asked about their income in the past 12 months—encompassing primary work, as well as any other income-generating activities—and about their professional satisfaction and aspirations for work in the future.
The resulting report, Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy, finds that up to 162 million people in Europe and the United States—or 20 to 30 percent of the working-age population—engage in some form of independent work. While demographically diverse, independent workers largely fit into four segments (exhibit): free agents, who actively choose independent work and derive their primary income from it; casual earners, who use independent work for supplemental income and do so by choice; reluctant, who make their primary living from independent work but would prefer traditional jobs; and the financially strapped, who do supplemental independent work out of necessity.

28) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

What do great managers actually do? In my research, beginning with a survey of 80,000 managers conducted by the Gallup Organization and continuing during the past two years with in-depth studies of a few top performers, I’ve found that while there are as many styles of management as there are managers, there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: They discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it. Average managers play checkers, while great managers play chess. The difference? In checkers, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way; they are interchangeable. You need to plan and coordinate their movements, certainly, but they all move at the same pace, on parallel paths. In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can’t play if you don’t know how each piece moves. More important, you won’t win if you don’t think carefully about how you move the pieces. Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack. This is the exact opposite of what great leaders do. Great leaders discover what is universal and capitalize on it. Their job is to rally people toward a better future. Leaders can succeed in this only when they can cut through differences of race, sex, age, nationality, and personality and, using stories and celebrating heroes, tap into those very few needs we all share. The job of a manager, meanwhile, is to turn one person’s particular talent into performance. Managers will succeed only when they can identify and deploy the differences among people, challenging each employee to excel in his or her own way. This doesn’t mean a leader can’t be a manager or vice versa. But to excel at one or both, you must be aware of the very different skills each role requires.

29) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

Spurred by the sense that disorderly behaviour among students in South Euclid was increasing, the school resource officer (SRO) reviewed data regarding referrals to the principal’s office. He found that the high school reported thousands of referrals a year for bullying and that the junior high school had recently experienced a 30 percent increase in bullying referrals. Police data showed that juvenile complaints about disturbances, bullying, and assaults after school hours had increased 90 percent in the past 10 years.

A researcher from Kent State University (Ohio) conducted a survey of all students attending the junior high and high school. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with students—identified as victims or offenders— teachers, and guidance counsellors. Finally, the South Euclid Police Department purchased a Geographic Information System to conduct crime incident mapping of hotspots within the schools. The main findings pointed to four primary areas of concern: the environmental design of the school; teacher knowledge of and response to the problem; parental attitudes and responses; and student perspectives and behaviours.

The SRO worked in close collaboration with a social worker and the university researcher. They coordinated a Response Planning Team comprising many stakeholders that was intended to respond to each of the areas identified in the initial analysis. Environmental changes included modifying the school schedule and increasing teacher supervision of hotspots. Counsellors and social workers conducted teacher training courses in conflict resolution and bullying prevention. Parent education included mailings with information about bullying, an explanation of the new school policy, and a discussion about what could be done at home to address the problems. Finally, student education included classroom discussions between homeroom teachers and students, as well as assemblies conducted by the SRO. The SRO also opened a substation next to a primary hotspot. The Ohio Department of Education contributed by opening a new training centre to provide a non-traditional setting for specialized help.

The results from the various responses were dramatic. School suspensions decreased by 40 percent. Bullying incidents dropped 60 percent in the hallways and 80 percent in the gym area. Follow-up surveys indicated that there were positive attitudinal changes among students about bullying and that more students felt confident that teachers would take action when a problem arose. Teachers indicated that training sessions were helpful and that they were more likely to talk about bullying as a serious issue. Parents responded positively, asking for more information about the problem in future mailings. The overall results suggest that the school environments were not only safer but that early intervention was helping at-risk students succeed in school.

30) Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence in 5-75 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. (New)

In 1815 on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, a handsome and long-quiescent mountain named Tambora exploded spectacularly, killing a hundred thousand people with its blast and associated tsunamis. It was the biggest volcanic explosion in ten thousand years—150 times the size of Mount St. Helens, equivalent to sixty thousand Hiroshima-sized atom bombs. News didn’t travel terribly fast in those days. In London, The Times ran a small story— actually a letter from a merchant—seven months after the event. But by this time Tambora’s effects were already being felt. Thirty-six cubic miles of smoky ash, dust, and grit had diffused through the atmosphere, obscuring the Sun’s rays and causing the Earth to cool. Sunsets were unusually but blearily colourful, an effect memorably captured by the artist.J. M. W. Turner, who could not have been happier, but mostly the world existed under an oppressive, dusky pall. It was this deathly dimness that inspired the Byron lines above.

Spring never came and summer never warmed: 1816 became known as the year without summer. Crops everywhere failed to grow. In Ireland a famine and associated typhoid epidemic killed sixty-five thousand people. In New England, the year became popularly known as Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death. Morning frosts continued until June and almost no planted seed would grow. Short of fodder, livestock died or had to be prematurely slaughtered. In every way it was a dreadful year—almost certainly the worst for farmers in modern times. Yet globally the temperature fell by only about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Earth’s natural thermostat, as scientists would learn, is an exceedingly delicate instrument.

Writing: Summarise Written Text

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