How to Summarize Spoken Text: 5 Essential Tips

In Summarize Spoken Text tasks of PTE Listening section, you have to listen to a recording of a lecture, which will be 60 to 90 seconds long. Then you have to summarize it in more than 50 words but less than 70 words. You will get 10 minutes to write the summary.

This task tests your listening as well as writing skills. Since you only get to hear the recording once, you must note down all the key points and supporting details while listening to the lecture, and then write a grammatically correct and error-free summary of the recording.

For Summarize written text tips, click here.

Things to keep in mind while doing Summarize Spoken Text:

1. Using less than 40 words or more than 100 words, or writing the entire summary in capital letters, will fetch you zero marks.
2. Ideally, you should be able to finish writing the summary in 8 minutes.  You will then be left with around 2 minutes to review the quality of the content, grammar and spellings.
3. Do not include all the information from the lecture in your summary. Identify the main points, and pay attention to the words and phrases that have been stressed or repeated frequently. Your summary should include the central theme of the lecture and the essential supporting points.
4. Although you will get an erasable booklet to take notes, it would be far more beneficial to note down the key points in the response box itself, if your typing speed is good. Since the cut-copy-paste feature is available, you can simple cut/copy the key points and paste them in your summary, rather than noting them down in your booklet first and then typing.
5. Put together details in the order followed by the speaker. If speaker mentions idea A first, B second, and C third, stick to the same flow of information. Stating the speaker’s opinion (if they provide one) in your summary will help you score better.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
   

You may use any one of the following sample templates for Summarize Spoken Text tasks-

• The brief and explicit summary encapsulates …. It has been demonstrated that …. Furthermore, it was also delineated that …. Therefore/Hence, after considering all substantial ideas of the lecture, it can be said that ….
• The talk delineates/outlines …. It is by …. that …. Hence, it is apparent from the aforementioned discussion that …. the role of …. in …. is indeed instrumental.
• The speaker gave brief information about …. Firstly, he talked about …. Secondly, he also discussed …. Moreover, …. However, …. Finally, the lecture was all about ….   

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