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TPS IX
Produção: Equipe Pedagógica Gran Cursos Online

TPS IX

SUMMARY WRITING 1

Being able to summarise quickly and accurately will be really useful in your
future career as a diplomat. It is well worth practising, as a life skill as well as
merely an examination skill.

You are aiming to show the examiners that you

• have understood the text

• can distinguish the main points
• can reproduce them coherently and concisely.

How to Produce a Good Summary

These steps are recommended:

1. Read the text and the instructions carefully. In the past you had to limit
your summary to 200 words according to the instructions. However this was not
the case for the 2017 examination.

1 Source: The Candidate’s Handbook: English

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TPS IX
Produção: Equipe Pedagógica Gran Cursos Online

2. Make sure you have understood the text.

3. Think carefully about the overall purpose of the text, its structure and the
main points. If you could summarize the text in one sentence, what would it be?
What does the text want to convey? Normally, there are six main points the exam-
iner wants you to find. They should be in your summary.

4. Make brief notes on the content. This step is very important, because
writing the summary from your notes will help you to use your own words, rather
than copying the ones from the text, which is not recommended.

5. Reorganise your notes as a plan to present the information as clearly as

possible. When preparing you summary, the same order in which the information
appears in the text is not necessarily the order you going to use.

6. Keep your language concise, direct and straightforward. This is not the
place to show off your vast command of vocabulary or to introduce new meta-
phors or figurative uses of language. These can be shown in the composition
section. Correctness is the key word for the summary.

7. Count the words shorten [or lengthen] your summary as necessary.

8. Check your English carefully.

O pulo do gato
If you follow these steps when practising, it becomes natural when you do it for real.

Time: since time is a key issue in the 5-hour CACD Phase 2 English test,
learn to follow these steps quickly. Some candidates may find that it is helpful to
do steps 1 and 2 at the beginning of the test, before tackling other exercises such
as translation into English or composition. If the test exercises are linked to
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the same topic, the text for summary is likely to be an important source of
ideas and vocabulary. Reading this text at an early stage will also help you to
start thinking and working in English.

Read the instructions: the length of texts set has varied over the years, but
the summary has normally been 200 words. All the same, you should always
read the instructions carefully, to make sure nothing has changed.

Length: observing the word-length is very important. The instructions for 2010
say “Write a summary in your own words not over 200 words in length of the fol-
lowing excerpt”. Do not write 220 or even 201 words. Adjust your text as nec-
essary. Similarly, a text of 100 word is probably too short.
PROVA ESCRITA – LÍNGUA INGLESA – SUMMARY
Aspectos Macroestruturais
Quesitos avaliados Faixa de Valor Nota
1 Fidelidade ao estilo do texto original 0,00 a 5,00 4,00
2 Correção gramatical e propriedade de linguagem 0,00 a 10,00 6,50
RESULTADO
Nota relativa à organização do texto e ao desenvolvimento do tema 10,50
NOTA PROVA ESCRITA – LÍNGUA INGLESA – PROVA ESCRITA – LÍNGUA
10,50
INGLESA – SUMMARY

�Este material foi elaborado pela equipe pedagógica do Gran Cursos Online, de acordo com a
aula preparada e ministrada pelo professor Jônathas Silveira. ANOTAÇÕES

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