Introduction:
Summary writing is a vital component of the WAEC English Language examination. It assesses your ability to comprehend passages and express the main ideas concisely in your own words. Mastery of this skill is essential for achieving a high score in the summary section.
Key Concepts:
1. Understanding Summary Writing:
Summary writing involves producing a shortened version of a longer passage, capturing only the essential points. It requires identifying the main ideas and expressing them clearly and concisely without personal opinions or unnecessary details.
2. Structure of Summary Answers:
- Complete Sentences: Each point should be written in a complete sentence.
- One Point per Sentence: Avoid combining multiple points in one sentence.
- Use Your Own Words: Paraphrase the original text to demonstrate understanding.
- Avoid Personal Opinions: Stick to the information provided in the passage.
3. Common Mistakes to Avoid:
- Inclusion of Unnecessary Material: Omitting examples, illustrations, and repetitions is crucial. Including such details can lead to mark deductions.
- Incomplete Sentences: Answers should be in full sentences; fragments or phrases are penalized.
- Mindless Lifting: Copying directly from the passage without paraphrasing can result in zero marks for that point.
- Combining Multiple Points: Each sentence should convey a single idea to avoid confusion and loss of marks.
4. Steps for Effective Summary Writing:
- Read the Questions First: Understanding what is being asked helps focus your reading.
- Skim the Passage: Get a general idea of the content and structure.
- Read Thoroughly: Identify the main ideas relevant to the questions.
- Highlight Key Points: Underline or note the main ideas as you read.
- Paraphrase: Rewrite the main ideas in your own words, ensuring clarity and conciseness.
- Review Your Answers: Check for completeness, relevance, and adherence to the required number of points.
Study Tips:
- Practice Regularly: Consistent practice with past questions enhances proficiency.Scribd
- Expand Vocabulary: A broad vocabulary aids in effective paraphrasing.
- Seek Feedback: Have teachers or peers review your summaries to identify areas for improvement.
- Time Management: Practice summarizing within a set time to simulate exam conditions.
Conclusion:
Mastering summary writing is crucial for excelling in the WAEC English Language examination. By understanding the structure, avoiding common mistakes, and practicing regularly, you can effectively convey the main ideas of passages and achieve a high score.
Past WAEC questions on summary writing are available here for you to study with.
Read the following passage and answer the questions on it.
Have you always thought that insects are nothing more than a nuisance? Would you like the world to be free of these annoying pests? Do you spray them, swat them, or step on them at every opportunity? Before declaring war on every bug that crosses your path, why not try to learn something about their world? After, all, population that outnumbers humans by about 200 million to one, you can be sure that insects are here to stay! A brief look at just a few of these amazing creatures might well convince you that insects deserve your respect.
Consider living insects for example. Mosquitoes can fly upside down. Some can even fly through the rain without getting wet- yes, actually dodging the raindrops! Some tropical wasps and bees buzz around at speeds of up to 72 kilometers per hour. One monarch butterfly of North America logged 3,010 kilometers on its migration flight. Hover flies can beat their wings more than a thousand times per second – much faster than humming-birds and dragon flies can fly backwards. Clearly then, insects are such accomplished fliers, unmatched by any other winged creature.
The eye of many insects serve as a compass. Bees and wasps for instance can detect the plane of polarized light.
This enable them to locate the sun’s position in the sky-even when it is hidden by the clouds. Thanks to this ability, these insects can forage far from their nests and still navigate their way home unerringly.
In the insect world, sounds and aromas are often used to find a mate – no small achievement when prospective mates are few and far between. Female emperor moths find a suitor by emitting a scent that is so potent that a male can home in on its source from nearly 11 kilometers away. Crickets, grasshoppers, and cicadas prefer to make themselves heard. Even we humans can hear the amorous cicada as it converts its whole body into a sounding board.
A large group of courting cicadas can create a noise louder than that of a drilling machine!
Insects play a vital role in our daily life. Indeed, about 30 percent of the foods we eat results from pollination by them. But pollination is only one of their useful functions. Insects keep the earth clean by means of an efficient recycling system, as they reprocess dead plant and animals. Scientists have observed that without insects the earth will be inundated with dead plant and animal matter. Insects also enrich the soil by liberating nutrients that make things grow. They are sorely missed when their work is not done. Consider what happened in Australia, which has become home to millions of cattle. Herds scattered dung everywhere. Besides being unsightly, the dung provided a breeding site for the bush fly -a plague to both humans and cattle. So dung beetles were imported from Europe and Africa, and the problem was solved!
Admittedly, some insects eat crops and carry disease. But only about one percent of the world’s insects is considered’ as pests, and many of these cause damage because of the way man himself altered the environment. Even with their drawbacks, insects are an integral part of the natural world on which we depend. Scientists have pointed out that while insects can survive without us, we cannot survive without them.
Questions
a. In three sentences, one for each, summarize the characteristics of insects discussed in the passage.
b. In three sentences, one for each, summarize the important functions of insects discussed in the passage.
