The Summary That Argued
A Reading and responding task asks students to summarise a 500-word news feature about a regional town's water restrictions, then answer a separate question about the writer's attitude. The summary must be 80-100 words and use own words. Sam's summary is 150 words and includes the sentence 'The council was clearly wrong to delay the restrictions'. The feature itself reports that the council delayed by six weeks and quotes a resident calling the delay 'frustrating'. It also quotes the mayor explaining that equipment had not arrived. Sam's second answer, on attitude, says the writer is 'angry at the council'. The rubric separates summary accuracy from attitude analysis and penalises inclusion of personal opinion in summaries.
1. Why does Sam's summary lose marks, and how should it be rewritten?
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It loses marks for three reasons: it exceeds the 80-100 word limit at 150, it imports Sam's own judgement, and it omits the mayor's explanation. The sentence 'clearly wrong to delay' is evaluation, not summary, and the rubric penalises personal opinion in this section. A compliant summary would state that the town introduced water restrictions after the council delayed them by six weeks, that residents expressed frustration, and that the mayor attributed the delay to delayed equipment. That version reports the competing accounts without adjudicating them, stays within the word limit, and uses own words rather than lifting phrases. Sam should count words before finishing and cut background that the feature treats as secondary. The key discipline is that a summary reports what the text says, including explanations that complicate the story, rather than delivering a verdict the task did not request.
2. Sam describes the writer as 'angry at the council'. Is that a defensible reading of the writer's attitude? What should a stronger answer do?
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It is too strong and too simple. The feature reports the delay, a resident's frustration, and the mayor's explanation about equipment, without editorial language that would justify 'angry'. A more defensible reading is that the writer is concerned or critical but balanced, presenting the delay as a problem while allowing the council's account to stand alongside it. The stronger answer names the attitude, cites textual evidence such as the inclusion of the mayor's explanation, and explains what that evidence implies about the writer's stance. Sam should also distinguish the resident's anger, which is quoted, from the writer's attitude, which is inferred from selection and framing. Conflating a quoted source's emotion with the writer's own position is the specific error to correct, and it matters because the rubric marks attitude analysis separately from summary.