SUMMARY WRITING PRACTICE 23/10/2020

Note on summary writing:

 Always start with a summary statement including an action verb and the main idea of the whole text.
 Only retain the details that support the main idea
 Paraphrase the main supporting details (Use your own words)
 Do not copy the original.
 Maintain cohesion and coherence.
 Do not include your own opinion or interpretation in the summary.

Practice 1: Read the following extract and use your own words to summarize it. Your summary should
be about 80 - 100 words long. You MUST NOT copy the original.
Once a location in the mountainous area is established as a main tourist destination, the effects on the local
community are profound. When hill-farmers, for example, can make more money in a few weeks working as
porters for foreign trekkers than they can in a year working in their fields, it is not surprising that many of them
give up their farm-work, which is thus left to other members of the family. In some hill-regions, this has led to a
serious decline in farm output and a change in local diet, because there is insufficient labor to maintain
terraces and irrigation systems and tend to crops. The result has been that many people in these regions have
turned to outside supplies of rice and other foods.
In Arctic and desert societies, year-round survival has traditionally depended on hunting animals and fish and
collecting fruit over a relatively short season. However, as some inhabitants become involved in tourism, they
no longer have time to collect wild food; this has led to increasing dependence on bought food and stores.
Tourism is not always the culprit behind such changes. All kinds of wage labor, or government handouts, tend
undermine traditional survival systems. Whatever the cause, the dilemma is always the same: what happens if
these new, external sources of income dry up?
The physical impact of visitors is another serious problem associated with the growth in adventure tourism.
Much attention has focused on erosion along major trails, but perhaps more important are the deforestation
and impacts on water supplies arising from the need to provide tourists with cooked food and hot showers. In
both mountains and deserts, slow-growing trees are often the main sources of fuel and water supplies may be
limited or vulnerable to degradation through heavy use.

Practice 2: Read the following extract and use your own words to summarize it. Your summary should
be about 80 - 100 words long. You MUST NOT copy the original.
Scientists have identified two ways in which species disappear. The first is thought ordinary or “background”
extinctions, where species that fail to adapt are slowly replaced by more adaptable life forms. The second is
when large numbers of species go to the wall in relatively short periods of biological time. There have been
five such extinctions, each provoked by cataclysmic evolutionary events caused by some geological eruption,
climate shift, or space junk slamming into the earth. Scientists now believe that another mass extinction of
species is currently under way- and this time human fingerprints are the trigger.
How are we doing it? Simply by demanding more and more space for ourselves. In our assault on the
ecosystems around us we have used a number of tools, from spear and gun to bulldozer and chainsaw.
Certain especially rich ecosystems have proved the most vulnerable. In Hawaii more than half of the native
birds are now gone- some 50 species. Such carnage has taken place all across the island communities of the
Pacific and Indian oceans. While many species were hunted to extinction, other simply succumbed to the
“introduced predators” that humans brought with them: the cat, the dog, the pig, and the rat.
Today the tempo of extinction is picking up speed. Hunting is no longer the major culprit, although rare birds
and animals continue to be butchered for their skin, feathers, and internal organs, or taken as cage pets.

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Today the main threat comes from the destruction of the habitat that wild plants, animals and insects need to
survive. The draining and damming of wetland and river courses threatens the aquatic food chain and our own
seafood industry. Overfishing and the destruction of fragile coral reefs destroy ocean biodiversity.
Deforestation is taking a staggering toll, particularly in the tropics where the most global biodiversity is at
stake. The shrinking rainforest cover of the Congo and Amazon River basins and such places Borneo and
Madagascar have a wealth of species per hectare existing nowhere else. As those precious hectares are
drowned or turned into arid pasture and cropland, such species disappear forever.

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 SUGGESTED ANSWER
The passage raises concern over the causes of animal extinction for which human bears greater responsibility
not just in terms of speed but also scale. Formerly, natural selection and disasters were scientifically
acknowledged as two attributes of species disappearance. However, at the time being, human are to blame for
the acceleration of this problem. It is their hunting activities and greater demand for living space that impose
considerable threat on the destruction of animal natural habitat, marine diversity and food sources.

SUGGESTED ANSWER
The extract discusses the disruptive effects of the newly established tourist attraction on its indigenous people.
Firstly, the involvement in the tourism activities results in the fall in farm products and a shift in local eating
habit. As a consequence, people may have to rely on external food providers. In addition, this also gives rise
to the dependence on ready-made food of the local people. This situation becomes worsened by other
physical problems such as deforestation, erosion, inadequate sources of fuel and water supplies and
degradation.

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