Choosing the Least Overreaching Summary
A class is practising unseen-prose summary. The teacher supplies this extract from a fictional memoir and three one-sentence summaries. Extract: 'For three months, Mira carried her father's old camera in a canvas bag without using it. The bag bumped against her hip on the bus to the market, through the queue at the ration office, past the school gate where the watchman called her painter. On the last Sunday of June, she took the camera out, photographed the cracked wall behind the bus stop, and immediately put it away. Her father, who had given it to her, said nothing when she returned; he only asked whether the lens cap was still tight.' Summaries: A. Mira delays using a gift and then takes a single careful photograph. B. Mira's father regrets giving her the camera. C. Mira becomes a professional photographer after overcoming fear. Students must choose one summary, cite two details, explain why one rejected summary fails, and keep the response to 80-100 words.
1. Which summary is strongest, and which two details support it?
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A is strongest. It follows the sequence without adding motives that the extract does not state: 'without using it' establishes delay, and 'photographed the cracked wall ... immediately put it away' establishes one deliberate act rather than a career or a cure. The detail that her father 'only asked whether the lens cap was still tight' supports care and practicality, not regret. A keeps the scope of the extract: one small decision, not a life transformed.
2. Why does summary C fail even though 'overcoming fear' sounds plausible?
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C fails because it converts an unstated emotion into a cause and an unstated outcome into a result. The extract never says Mira is afraid; it says she carries the camera unused for three months. Nor does one photograph of a cracked wall make her a 'professional photographer'. The word 'professional' requires training, payment, or public recognition, none of which appears. A good answer should distinguish inference from invention: delay can be inferred, but fear and profession cannot. That is why C overreaches while A remains defensible.
3. Which single word in the extract most strongly supports the idea that the photograph is 'careful', and why?
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The strongest support is 'immediately', but only when read with 'put it away'. It shows a controlled, brief action rather than a casual snap or a public performance. 'Cracked' also helps: Mira chooses a modest, specific subject rather than a grand one. However, 'immediately' alone could suggest haste, so the answer must pair it with the fact that she had waited three months and with the father's later question about the lens cap. The judgement is cumulative, not a single-word proof.