In the PTE Academic test, Speaking and Writing part is 77-93 minutes long, which is the longest section in the test. For the Writing you need to complete two types of questions, that are Summarize Written Text (SWT) and Essay. SWT is not tough as the Essay Writing but if you don’t know tips how to do it right, SWT can take more time to finish. And you may run out of time for the Essay Writing, that will hinder you from getting the good score of Writing.
In this article, we provide you tips and guide to make your SWT part much more easily.
First you need to understand its format and requirements:
In Summarize Written Text task, you will get a paragraph that conveys some information. After reading the text you have to write a one-sentence summary. The time allotted for this task of the PTE test is 10 minutes.
Then read these following tips and apply effectively to your Writing SWT practicing:
1. Make sure to include the main points of the reading passage in a full, single sentence of no more than 75 words
Your answer must begin with a capital letter and complete with only a full stop at the end. The best response must
2. The word count at the bottom of the screen counts the number of words you write
Your response must be between 5-75 words so check the word count by using the “Total Word Count” counter below the response box.
There are also cut, copy and paste buttons which you may use while constructing your summary.
Cut: Select text from your answer that you wish to remove and left-click “Cut”.
Copy: Select text from your answer that you wish to copy and left-click “Copy”.
Paste: Place the cursor where you wish to paste the cut/copied text and left-click “Paste”.
3. Don’t include your own ideas
The text may cover subjects like art, history, medicine, earth sciences, sports, politics, chemistry, etc. If the topic of the text are familiar to you or you do know a lot about it, please do not include any additional information that is not presented in the text. Even if you’ ve never met the topic in the paragraph before, don’t panic since all the information you need is presented in the text itself.
4. Answer the questions “What are they talking about?” and “What did they do?”
To grab the right topic and full main ideas of the paragraph, you need to answer two questions “what’s the text talking about?” and “what happened to it?”.
5. Two steps reading
Carefully read the entire paragraph once, and try to understand the meaning of the text. While reading it for the 2nd time, note down all the keywords and phrases which appears repeatedly, and ignore other supporting details. Each step should take 1 minute.
6. Practice using compound and complex sentences
Your answer must be expressed within one sentence, so you will need to use a complex or a compound sentence to be able to summarize the main point of the passage and also briefly mention the supporting details.
Complex sentence: It is created by merging one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses, and the distinctions between them are indicated by commas.
For example: “Whenever prices goes up, customers buy less products.”
Compound sentence : It is created by joining independent clauses by using conjunctions like and, but, if, etc. Commas indicate distinctions between clauses.
For example: “The economy grows so fast but also it comes with the evironment cost.”
7. Don’t copy the whole sentence
Try to use synonyms and write it down in your own words as much as possible.
8. Don’t do ” The paragraph says/tells”
Your response shouldn’t contain phrases like, “The text/paragraph says….”.
9. Use correct grammar and vocabulary
Make sure that you place articles (a, an, the) in all the right places. If you are unsure about a word or phrase, it is best to substitute it with another. Don’t include too many details as it is makes framing grammartically correct sentences harder.
10. The best response
The best responses usually consist of a main clause and a subordinate clause. And the best responses use words from the text appropriately, demonstrate an understanding of the context and use synonyms to show variety in your language use.
Now all you have to do is practice, practice, practice with these tips and notes also go for the mock tests and that will definitely improve your scores a lot.
Practice with our PTE questions: http://www.ptemagicpractice.com
