Lesson 4 of 136 min read
Summarize Written Text
Learn the Summarize Written Text format, Academic and Core word limits, Content and Form rules, and a worked example you can use in practice.
What does Summarize Written Text look like?
A reading passage appears on screen with a response box beneath it. There's no question to answer, your job is to condense the passage into a summary that captures its main content, under a hard word limit and a countdown for the whole task. Because you're graded on Reading as well as Writing here, reading the passage accurately matters as much as how you write the summary.
PTE Academic
PTE Academic gives you a passage of up to 300 words and 10 minutes to summarize it. There are 2 items per test. The on-screen instruction asks for a one-sentence summary, and a live word counter (labelled "Total Word Count") sits below the response box, alongside cut, copy and paste buttons.
PTE Core
PTE Core gives you a shorter passage, up to 200 words, and the same 10-minute limit. There are 1–2 items per test. The word counter sits at the bottom of the screen, with cut, copy and paste buttons also available. Core doesn't require a single sentence, a short summary in your words is enough.
How is the word limit scored?
Form is scored purely on word count and formatting, and, for Academic, on whether your answer is written as one single sentence.
PTE Academic
| Form score | Requirement |
|---|---|
| 1 (full credit) | Written as one single complete sentence, 5–75 words |
| 0 | Not one single complete sentence, OR fewer than 5 or more than 75 words, OR written in capital letters |
Two well-written sentences still score Form = 0
Academic's Form rule is binary, not a sliding scale, and the sentence requirement is separate from the word count. A summary of 60 well-chosen words split across two sentences scores Form = 0, the same as a 3-word fragment, and because Content and Form both have to score above 0 before any other trait is counted, that single extra full stop can zero the whole task.
PTE Core
| Form score | Requirement |
|---|---|
| 2 (full credit) | 25–50 words |
| 1 | 5–24 or 51–60 words |
| 0 | Fewer than 5 or more than 60 words, OR capital letters, OR no punctuation, OR bullet points only |
Core's Form scale is more forgiving than Academic's: there's a partial-credit band either side of the 25–50 word target, and no requirement to fit everything into one sentence.
How are Content, Grammar and Vocabulary scored?
PTE Academic
| Trait | Range | What it rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Content | 0–4 | Full comprehension, effective paraphrasing and synthesis of the main ideas, at the top band; partial or surface-level coverage scores lower |
| Grammar | 0–2 | Correct structure down to errors that hinder communication |
| Vocabulary | 0–2 | Appropriate word choice down to errors that hinder communication |
PTE Core
| Trait | Range | What it rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Content | 0–2 | All relevant aspects of the passage mentioned, down to omitting or misrepresenting the main point |
| Grammar | 0–2 | Same band language as Academic |
| Vocabulary | 0–2 | Same band language as Academic |
Both exams score Grammar and Vocabulary the same way: a 2 means correct structure and appropriate word choice throughout, a 1 means errors that don't stop the reader understanding you, and a 0 means errors serious enough to hinder communication. That three-tier pattern, correct, flawed but clear, or unclear, repeats across almost every language trait in PTE Writing, not just this task.
Neither exam adds a separate Spelling trait to this task. Spelling only gets its own trait on Write Essay, Write Email and Summarize Spoken Text. Grammar and Vocabulary are covered in depth in Grammar & Sentence Variety and Vocabulary & Spelling.
A worked Summarize Written Text example
Practice passage: community solar gardens (original text, not a real exam item)
Community solar gardens let households that cannot install panels on their own roof, renters, apartment residents, or homeowners with heavily shaded properties, buy or lease a share of a larger solar array built nearby. Subscribers get a credit on their electricity bill roughly proportional to the share of the array's output they own, without ever seeing the installation from their own property. The model has grown quickly wherever state or provincial policy supports it, since it removes the two biggest barriers to solar adoption: upfront installation cost and unsuitable roof space. Utilities usually apply the billing credit automatically, so subscribers don't track generation figures themselves. Critics note that subscription contracts can run for fifteen years or longer, and that credit values sometimes shift if regulators revise the rules after a subscriber has already signed on, making long-term savings harder to predict than developers' marketing materials often suggest.
PTE Academic
Academic-style response
Summarize the passage above in one single sentence of 5–75 words.
Answer: Community solar gardens let people who cannot fit panels on their own roof buy a share of a nearby solar array and receive a proportional bill credit, a model that has expanded quickly where policy support exists but that critics say carries unpredictable long-term savings due to long contracts and shifting regulatory credit rates.
Content: high, it captures the mechanism (buying a share, getting a credit), the reason for the model's growth (policy support), and the main critique (unpredictable savings), synthesised rather than copied.
Form = 1: written as one single complete sentence, and well within the 5–75 word range.
Grammar and Vocabulary: the single sentence uses subordinate clauses correctly and varies its vocabulary rather than repeating the source passage's exact phrasing.
PTE Core
Core-style response
Summarize the passage above. Aim for 25–50 words for full Form credit.
Answer: Community solar gardens let renters and shaded-roof owners buy a share of a nearby solar array and get a bill credit for their share of its output. The model has grown fast, though contracts can lock subscribers in for fifteen years or longer, with credit values that may change.
Content: high, it mentions who the model helps, how the credit works, and the main caveat about long contracts and shifting credit values.
Form = 2: two sentences, 49 words, inside the 25–50 word range for full credit, close to the top of it.
Grammar and Vocabulary: correct structure throughout, with paraphrased rather than copied wording from the source passage.
What mistakes cost the most points on this task?
Copying whole phrases straight from the passage
A summary built mostly from lifted phrases, rather than your own paraphrasing, scores lower on Content even if it technically covers the right ideas, the Score Guide's top Content band specifically rewards paraphrasing, and its lower bands describe relying on repeating source excerpts.
A generic, prompt-independent summary risks Content = 0
A summary written to fit almost any passage, rather than the specific one in front of you, can be treated as pre-prepared material, classified as an irrelevant response and scored Content = 0. See How Writing Is Scored for how that gate works.
Continue learning
Related lessons and more practice
Try a full set in Writing practice or the question bank. Next in this course: Write Essay, which is scored on similar Content and Form principles but at much greater length. Its companion task in Part 3 is Summarize Spoken Text, the same listen-then-summarize skill applied to audio instead of a reading passage.
The word-limit and traits tables here come from the PTE Academic Score Guide and the PTE Core Score Guide.