Read the passage first, then Attempt to write a summary of your own make your teacher or someone else read what you have written so you can improve. However, you can look at the passage that has done already to guide you in writing your own
| Summarize the following article about bacteria in not more than 120 words. |
| Bacteria are the smallest living things with a cellular structure; each individual bacterium consisting of one single colorless cell, which is usually either spherical or rod-shaped. Individual bacteria measure from 0.0001 inches to 0.00001 inches in length, so they can be seen only with the help of a high-power microscope. They are so small that they can float in the atmosphere, usually as ‘passengers’ on dust particles, up to a height of several thousand feet, except immediately after a heavy downpour, when the air is washed clean. Bacteria are present in all natural as well as in drinking water that has not been purified or bailed. A large number of bacteria live in the soil, down to a depth of several feet, and they are particularly abundant in faeces and sewage. Thus, living bacteria are always present on the surface of our bodies and on everything around us, but they are seldom found inside the tissues of healthy plants and animals. Since most kinds of bacteria contain no chlorophyll, they cannot use light energy and Synthesize their food. They have to get their food in other ways, mostly ready-made by other living things. Like plants, it can only take in dissolved food. A majority get their supply from dead remains of other organisms. Bacteria reproduce by dividing into two, and these new individuals grow so quickly that they are ready to divide again in about half an hour. Hence, in ten hours, under the most favorable conditions, a single bacterium can produce over a million bacteria. That is one reason for it being so difficult to ensure any object is completely free from any kind of living organisms. In addition, some forms of bacteria have a waxy envelope outside their cell wall and are thus more difficult to kill. Few bacteria can long survive a temperature above 80°C in the presence of moisture. Hence, when food items are boiled, nearly all the bacteria present is killed. Pasteurization is a milder heat treatment that destroys the bacteria in milk. The rate of multiplication of bacteria is greatly slowed down at temperatures below 10°C. This means that food will remain unaffected by bacteria in a refrigerator. Drying is also another method of preserving food and this dehydration of foodstuff prevents bacteria from growing and multiplying as there is insufficient moisture. Describe briefly the evolution of the writing system and tools. Your summary should not exceed 120 words. Today, with just twenty-six letters, we can write a letter to our friends or answer an examination question. Thousands of years ago, there was no writing system at all. News, knowledge and information were passed on from one person to another by word of mouth. If you ever played ‘rumor clinic’ where a cognate message is passed from one person to another down the chain by mouth, you will understand the inefficiency of the system. Messages passed down are unreliable as the speakers may mix up or lose part of the information. The first written language was invented by the early cave man. They tied bits of animal hair together to form brushes and painted pictures on the cave wall, telling their friends about their hunts. It was after several centuries that different writing systems like the Chinese characters and hieroglyphs in Egypt were invented. The alphabetical system that we are using currently also came about only after many decades of development. Besides alphabets, the invention of writing tools is another major transition. In olden times, the kind of writing tools used, depended on the material they wrote on. For example, in the Middle East, where clay is abundant in supply, the early people used hollow reed ‘pens’ to carve onto the wet clay tablets. After which, these clay pieces were baked till rock hard to make the writings permanent. In ancient Egypt, Egyptians either wrote on scraped thin pieces of animal skins called ‘parchment’ or flattened papaya stems known as ‘papyrus’. Their writing tool was a primitive kind of fountain pen — a reed with ink inside. It was only in the 1880s, that fountain pens were invented. Before that, most people used either quill pens – sharpened bird feathers or nibbed pens, which were dipped into ink before writing. Fountain pens invented later have both plus and minus points. With tiny ink tanks in them, fountain pens are superior to quill or nibbed ones as the ink in them do not run out as quickly. The disadvantage is that sometimes, the nibs of the fountain pens may break, causing the ink to leak, staining the writer’s fingers. The flaw in fountain pens has led to further investigation and the successful invention of the first ‘ballpoint’ pen by a Hungarian, Ladislao Biro. There were many people after him who tried to improve upon the appearance of his ballpoint pens. Today, ‘ballpoint’ pens are conveniently and widely used in the world. Summarize in not more than 120 words, the advantages and disadvantages of advertisements. We are bombarded by many advertisements every day. Vendors try all means and ways to gain our attention and sell us their products or services. Advertisements appear everywhere; on television programs, radios, in the papers, magazines, pamphlets and so on. Advertisements are actually very useful though we sometimes feel annoyed when they interrupt our favorite television programs. They provide us with free information on the products and services. There are two types of advertisements. The informative advertisements are the ones which provide us with the details of the products or services. This information is especially useful if the product or service is new. For instance, when we need to buy a computer, advertisements describing the latest models and their different functions would be extremely helpful. However, only a minority of the advertisements are informative ones. Many of them belong to the second category — the persuasive kind. These advertisements not only tell us more about the products, at the same time, they persuade customers to buy them by claiming that their products are superior to the rivalry ones. These claims may sometimes be untrue. Besides being informative and persuasive, advertisements also help to subsidize the prices of magazines and newspapers. Our newspapers are sold at a low price of about one dollar, owing to the advertisements in the papers; otherwise, the price would have been higher. While advertisements can be good helpers for shopping, they do have their shortcomings. Most advertisements aim to sell only. Faults of the products or services are usually hidden from the consumers. Hence, sometimes, we feel deceived if the product or service we bought does not turn out the way the advertisements claim to be. Sometimes, advertisements by rival competitors can get very intensive, especially when there are many firms producing similar products. One common example is the washing powder. There are so many advertisements for the different brands that customers sometimes get confused over what they should buy. Furthermore, having more advertisements would mean that the production cost of the firm would be increased. These rises in cost are usually passed on to the consumers in the form of higher prices. Hence, in conclusion, though I do advocate advertisements, I do not deny their flaws. Without them, we might have to buy things based on incomplete information or go through more complicated ways before getting to know the products or services. On the other hand, too many advertisements also complicate our buying decisions. So I would say that we cannot live without advertisements but we must be careful how we live with them. Summarize in not more than 120 words, Bombay is often regarded as India’s Capital of Hope. Often wondering why this is so, I made a fruitful trip down to the busy city, solving most of my queries. Bombay consists of seven islands, joined by land reclamation. Many Indians, especially those from the rural areas, regard Bombay as their paradise, since they could find work relatively easily here, as compared to their homelands. Being the pillarfor revenue collection, Bombay’s economic growth has far outperformed the other cities. In fact, its per capita (head) production of goods and services is about three times greater than that of Delhi – India’s second most prosperous city. Despite the economic boom, Bombay gives me an astonishing image of deterioration when I first stepped into the city. The ostentatiously dignified imperial buildings, erected by the British, are so overly populated that they look as if they are toppling over any minute. There are the 1950s kind of black and yellow taxis, which appeared as if brutally thrashed, lining up like ants trails, clotting up the small avenues. Amidst the dins of traffic jams, stood the oppressed-looking buildings of Benetton outlets, foreign car dealerships, croissant-serving outlets and so on. Though unemployment is not a significant problem in Bombay, housing is. A visit in Dharavi, a slum area in Bombay will help clarify our imagination. The Bombayites’ so called “houses” are actually movable shacks, built from unwanted bits of tarpaulin, tin and cardboard. There are so many of them that a maze of alleys emerged, passable only when I walked sideways like a crab between them. Curious about the living conditions, I wondered around the maze, meeting groups of scantily clad kids and hungry, stray dogs. Popping my inquisitive head into one of the small huts, I was totally amazed by their living conditions. Estimating about twelve or more Bombayites living in each hut, these two-storey houses are usually partitioned by rough platforms with ceilings no higher than five feet from the ground. Furthermore, `these shacks look absolutely bare — no furniture and I deduced that the inhabitants eat and sleep on the ground. In spite of the poor living conditions, many Indians still hope to migrate to Bombay. Interviewing a few of the newcomers, a majority of them said that they came to Bombay to find jobs. There are some who regard Bombay as buoyant floats, saving them from natural disasters and tyrannies in their homelands. |
