Summary completion tasks give you a short paragraph with gaps — you fill each gap with words taken directly from the reading passage (or sometimes from a word box). They look simple, but students frequently lose marks to word limit errors and paraphrase confusion.
Two Types of Summary Completion
- From the passage: You must use words that appear in the text, staying within the word limit (e.g., "NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS"). Don't paraphrase — use the exact words from the passage.
- From a word box: You choose from a provided list of words or phrases. The words in the box are often paraphrases of passage content, so matching is based on meaning, not exact words.
The Step-by-Step Strategy
- Read the summary first. Understand what topic it covers and which part of the passage it summarises.
- Identify the word class needed for each gap. Is it a noun? Adjective? Verb? Number? The grammar of the sentence tells you what kind of word fits.
- Scan the relevant passage section. The summary follows the passage order, so gaps 1-5 correspond to an early section, later gaps to later sections.
- Check the word limit strictly. "No more than two words" means one or two words — never three. Articles (a/the) count as words. Missing this is an automatic wrong answer.
Common Mistakes
- Using more words than the limit allows. "The coastal regions" when the limit is two words is wrong if the answer is simply "coastal regions" without "the."
- Paraphrasing when the instructions say "from the passage." Your answer must be the exact words from the text.
- Copying the wrong synonym. The summary might use a synonym of a passage word — find the right section, not just matching vocabulary.
Related Guides
→ Matching headings · Sentence completion · True/False/Not Given