Chiến thuật IELTS Reading – Dạng 3: Summary Completion – Excellent Tips for Summary Completion Questions

Trong bài viết này, IPP sẽ hướng dẫn chiến thuật làm bài dạng Summary Completion để đạt band điểm cao trong IELTS Reading. 

Chiến thuật IELTS Reading – Summary Completion

I. Các bước làm bài dạng Summary Completion trong IELTS Reading

Dạng bài Summary completion questions có 2 loại: 

+ Loại 01: Summary without given words => không có sẵn từ để điền vào => thứ tự đáp án xuất hiện sẽ tuân theo thứ tự từ trên xuống dưới trong bài đọc // đáp án nằm trong 1-2 đoạn văn  => chỉ cần copy y chang từ trong bài đọc vào đáp án => KHÁ DỄ => LÀM TRƯỚC để nắm nội dung của 1-2 đoạn trong bài một cách chắc chắn.

+ Loại 02: Summary with given words => có sẵn từ (là các từ synonyms, hoàn toàn không xuất hiện trong bài đọc) => thứ tự đáp án không theo thứ tự xuất hiện trong bài nhưng nội dung của Summary nằm gọn trong 1-2 đoạn văn => KHÓ! => LÀM CUỐI CÙNG 

1. Summary With Given Words 

STEPS TO DEAL WITH THIS TYPE OF QUESTION 

+ STEP 01: phân tích các từ được cho trong table of given words, bạn cần hiểu rõ meanings của các từ này và word forms của chúng.  

+ STEP 02: phân tích đoạn Summary và predict word form // meaning của từ cần điền và các từ xung quanh để xác định vị trí trong bài cần locating. 

+ STEP 03: Lưu ý là đoạn Summary được đưa ra thường gói gọn trong 1-2 đoạn văn cố định trong bài, tuyệt đối không trải dài cả bài. Thứ tự xuất hiện của ĐÁP ÁN trong đoạn Summary (là synonyms của các từ trong đoạn văn) KHÔNG THEO thứ tự trong bài đọc nhưng chắc chắc là nằm gọn trong 1-2 đoạn. 

+ STEP 04: So sánh giữa text trong đề và từ vựng trong table mà có thể là synonyms của từ trong đoạn text. Lưu ý, ở bước này, bạn cần chú ý đến các từ nối trong câu để xem xét tính kết nối giữa các vế trong đoạn văn, ví dụ: “however” // “although” // “despite” // “therefore” // “similarly”. Vì câu trước và câu sau có thể tuân theo quan hệ: đối lập; nguyên nhân – kết quả; bổ sung ý tưởng. Dựa vào các mối quan này, bạn xác định từ cần điền. 

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below. Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

1. difficult

2. complex

3. original

4. admired

5. material

6. easy

7. fundamental

=> các từ trong table đều là ADJECTIVE 

The wheel is one invention that has had a major impact on 1………… aspects of life, but no impact has been as 2………… as that of language. Language is very 3………… , yet composed of just a small number of sounds. Language appears to be 4………… to use. However, its sophistication is often overlooked.

READING TEXT

This Marvellous Invention

Of all mankind’s manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions – the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread – may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human [Q1].  since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.

But language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity [Q4],: ‘this marvellous invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions [Q3] which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul’. This was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more eloquently the magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the homage to language’s unique accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity. Language is mankind’s greatest invention – except, of course, that it was never invented. This apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.

VOCABULARY LIST

• manifold (adj): nhiều
• material (n): vật liệu
• pale in significance (collo): có ý nghĩa mờ nhạt
• embarked on our ascent to (collo): bắt đầu hành trình
• sophistication (n): tinh hoa/ sự tinh tế phức tạp
• ingenious (adj): khéo léo
• simplicity (n): sự đơn giản
• infinite (adj): vô hạn
• disclose to (v): tiết lộ cho
• renowned (adj): nổi tiếng
• paradox (n): nghịch lý
  

KEY & EXPLANATION

2. Summary Without Given Words 

STEPS TO DEAL WITH THIS TYPE OF QUESTION 

+ STEP 01: phân tích đoạn Summary và predict word form // meaning của từ cần điền và các từ xung quanh để xác định vị trí trong bài cần locating. Highlight key words cần thiết. Từ cần điền vào trong Summary là từ có sẵn trong bài đọc, bạn không cần phải biến hoá và chỉ cần bưng y chang. 

+ STEP 02: Lưu ý là đoạn Summary được đưa ra thường gói gọn trong 1-2 đoạn văn cố định trong bài, tuyệt đối không trải dài cả bài. Thứ tự xuất hiện của các từ bạn cần điền KHÔNG đi theo thứ tự của đoạn văn nhưng chắc chắc là nằm gọn trong 1-2 đoạn. 

+ STEP 03: So sánh giữa text trong đề và từ vựng trong table mà có thể là synonyms của từ trong đoạn text. Lưu ý, ở bước này, bạn cần chú ý đến các từ nối trong câu để xem xét tính kết nối giữa các vế trong đoạn văn, ví dụ: “however” // “although” // “despite” // “therefore” // “similarly”. Vì câu trước và câu sau có thể tuân theo quan hệ: đối lập; nguyên nhân – kết quả; bổ sung ý tưởng. Dựa vào đây, bạn xác định từ cần điền.

QUESTIONS

Questions 01 – 05: Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

Consumers often complain that they experience a feeling of 1 ………… when trying to put together do-it-yourself products which have not been tested by companies on a 2 …………. In situations where not keeping to the correct procedures could affect safety issues, it is especially important that 3 ………… information is not left out, and no assumptions are made about a stage being self-evident or the consumer having a certain amount of 4 …………. Lawyers, however, have raised objections to the use of plain English. They feel that it would result in ambiguity in documents and cause people to lose faith in 5 …………, as it would mean departing from language that has been used in the courts for a very long time.

READING TEXT

The instructions accompanying do-it-yourself products are regularly cited as a source of unnecessary expense or frustration [Q1]. Few companies seem to test their instructions by having them followed by a first-time user [Q2]. Often, essential information is omitted, steps in the construction process are taken for granted [Q3], and some degree of special knowledge is assumed [Q4]. This is especially worrying in any fields where failure to follow correct procedures can be dangerous.

Objections to material in plain English have come mainly from the legal profession. Lawyers point to the risk of ambiguity inherent in the use of everyday language for legal or official documents, and draw attention to the need for confidence in legal formulations, which can come only from using language that has been tested in courts over the course of centuries [Q5]. The campaigners point out that there has been no sudden increase in litigation as a consequence of the increase in plain English materials.

KEY & EXPLANATION

II. Practice test

Questions 01 – 04 – [Duration: 10 mins] 

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-F, below.

Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 01-04 on your answer sheet.

Epigenetic processes

In epigenetic processes, 1……………. influence the activity of our genes, for example in creating our internal 2…………………. The study of epigenetic processes is uncovering a way in which our genes can be affected by our 3………………. . One example is that if a pregnant rat suffers stress, the new-born rat may later show problems in its 4……………….

RESEARCH USING TWINS

To biomedical researchers all over the world, twins offer a precious opportunity to untangle the influence of genes and the environment – of nature and nurture. Because identical twins come from a single fertilized egg that splits into two, they share virtually the same genetic code. Any differences between them – one twin having younger looking skin, for example – must be due to environmental factors such as less time spent in the sun.

Alternatively, by comparing the experiences of identical twins with those of fraternal twins, who come from separate eggs and share on average half their DNA, researchers can quantify the extent to which our genes affect our lives. If identical twins are more similar to each other with respect to an ailment than fraternal twins are, then vulnerability to the disease must be rooted at least in part in heredity.

These two lines of research – studying the differences between identical twins to pinpoint the influence of environment, and comparing identical twins with fraternal ones to measure the role of inheritance – have been crucial to understanding the interplay of nature and nurture in determining our personalities, behavior, and vulnerability to disease.

The idea of using twins to measure the influence of heredity dates back to 1875, when the English scientist Francis Galton first suggested the approach (and coined the phrase ‘nature and nurture’). But twin studies took a surprising twist in the 1980s, with the arrival of studies into identical twins who had been separated at birth and reunited as adults. Over two decades 137 sets of twins eventually visited Thomas Bouchard’s lab in what became known as the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. Numerous tests were carried out on the twins, and they were each asked more than 15,000 questions.

Bouchard and his colleagues used this mountain of data to identify how far twins were affected by their genetic makeup. The key to their approach was a statistical concept called heritability. in broad terms, the heritability of a trait measures the extent to which differences among members of a population can be explained by differences in their genetics. And wherever Bouchard and other scientists looked, it seemed, they found the invisible hand of genetic influence helping to shape our lives.

Lately, however, twin studies have helped lead scientists to a radical new conclusion: that nature and nurture are not the only elemental forces at work. According to a recent field called epigenetics, there is a third factor also in play, one that in some cases serves as a bridge between the environment and our genes, and in others operates on its own to shape who we are.

Epigenetic processes are chemical reactions tied to neither nature nor nurture but representing what researchers have called a ‘third component’. These reactions influence how our genetic code is expressed: how each gene is strengthened or weakened, even turned on or off, to build our bones, brains and all the other parts of our bodies.

If you think of our DNA as an immense piano keyboard and our genes as the keys – each key symbolizing a segment of DNA responsible for a particular note, or trait, and all the keys combining to make us who we are – then epigenetic processes determine when and how each key can be struck, changing the tune being played.

One way the study of epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of biology is by revealing a mechanism by which the environment directly impacts on genes. Studies of animals, for example, have shown that when a rat experiences stress during pregnancy, it can cause epigenetic changes in a fetus that lead to behavioral problems as the rodent grows up. Other epigenetic processes appear to occur randomly, while others are normal, such as those that guide embryonic cells as they become heart, brain, or liver cells, for example.

Geneticist Danielle Reed has worked with many twins over the years and thought deeply about what twin studies have taught us. ‘It’s very clear when you look at twins that much of what they share is hardwired,’ she says. ‘Many things about them are absolutely the same and unalterable. But it’s also clear, when you get to know them, that other things about them are different. Epigenetics is the origin of a lot of those differences, in my view.’

Reed credits Thomas Bouchard’s work for today’s surge in twin studies. ‘He was the trailblazer,’ she says. ‘We forget that 50 years ago things like heart disease were thought to be caused entirely by lifestyle. Schizophrenia was thought to be due to poor mothering. Twin studies have allowed us to be more reflective about what people are actually born with and what’s caused by experience.’

Having said that, Reed adds, the latest work in epigenetics promises to take our understanding even further. ‘What I like to say is that nature writes some things in pencil and some things in pen,’ she says. ‘Things written in pen you can’t change. That’s DNA. But things written in pencil you can. That’s epigenetics. Now that we’re actually able to look at the DNA and see where the pencil writings are, it’s sort of a whole new world.’

VOCABULARY LIST

• biomedical (adj.): y sinh 
• untangle (v.): gỡ rối
• identical (adj.) twins (n.): sinh đôi cùng trứng // giống nhau như đúc
• fraternal twins (n.): sinh đôi khác trứng
• quantify (v.): định lượng
• ailment (n.): bệnh
• vulnerability (n.): dễ bị tổn thương 
• heredity (n.): sự di truyền
• inheritance (n.): di sản
• radical (adj.): căn nguyên – thuộc về nguồn gốc
• nature and nurture (adj.): tự nhiên và sự nuôi dưỡng
• epigenetics (n.): biểu sinh – một quá trình phát triển cơ thể của sinh vật 
• symbolizing (v.): tượng trưng cho gì đó
• mechanism (n.):  cơ chế
• fetus (n.): thai nhi 
• embryonic (adj.) cells (n.): tế bào phôi 
• hardwired (adj.): có tình ràng buộc, khó thay đổi
• unalterable (adj.): không đổi
• trailblazer (n.): tiên phong
• reflective about (adj.): phản ánh
• randomly (adv.): một cách ngẫu nhiên

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