What a précis is, and what the examiner rewards

What you will be able to do

By the end of this lesson you will be able to say what a précis is, and tell it apart from a copy, a paraphrase, a set of notes and an opinion. You will know the five things the examiner looks for when marking Q.2, so that you can test any précis, your own included, against them.

1. Look at this first

Here is a short passage of 132 words, written for this course. Read it once.

Every town in Pakistan has a cricket ground, but few have a public library. This is a pity, because a library does for the mind what a ground does for the body. A boy who cannot afford to buy books can read a hundred of them in a year if a library lies within reach of his home. Some argue that the internet has made libraries unnecessary. That is only half true. The internet gives an answer quickly, but it does not teach a child to sit with a long book, and it is no help to a family that has no reliable connection. A country that wants readers must therefore build places where reading is easy and free. Such a place costs little beside the benefit it gives for a generation.

Now here are three attempts to shorten it. Before you read my comments, decide which one you would give the most marks.

Attempt A

Every town in Pakistan has a cricket ground, but few have a public library. A library does for the mind what a ground does for the body. Some argue that the internet has made libraries unnecessary. That is only half true.

Attempt B

In my opinion libraries are very important because knowledge is power and the youth of Pakistan should read books instead of wasting time on mobile phones and social media, and the government must build libraries in every town.

Attempt C

The writer said that a library trained the mind as a ground trained the body, and gave poor children books. The internet could not replace it, since it built no habit of long reading. A country that wanted readers had to make reading free.

Attempt A is short, but every word of it is copied, and it stops halfway. It tells us the writer’s doubt about the internet and never tells us his answer or what he wants done. Attempt B is the candidate’s own speech about libraries. Mobile phones, social media and “knowledge is power” are nowhere in the passage. Attempt C is a précis. It is 44 words, a third of the passage. It keeps the writer’s three points in his order, says them in new words, and adds nothing.

2. The idea in plain words

What a précis is

A précis is the main line of a passage, written again in your own words and much shorter. The main line is what the writer is saying, as against the examples, the repetitions and the decoration he uses to say it. You keep the first and let the rest go. The word is French. Say it PRAY-see. It is spelt the same for one précis and for two.

FPSC’s syllabus describes the passage it sets as “A careful selected passage with an orientation of generic understanding and enough flexibility for compression”.¹ In plain words, the passage is chosen so that it can be shortened. It has a main line, and it has material around the main line that can be taken away. The syllabus gives the question 20 marks, and says “15 shall go to précising the text and 5 to suggesting the title”. The title has its own lesson.

What a précis is not

A précis is easiest to understand beside the four things candidates write instead. Figure 1 draws three of them beside a précis. The fourth, an opinion, cannot be drawn from the passage at all, because it does not come from the passage.

A paraphrase says everything again in other words. It is as long as the passage, or longer. If your précis comes out at two thirds of the passage, you have paraphrased it.

Notes are broken pieces that only you can read: a word, an arrow, a dash in place of a verb. A précis is a paragraph of full sentences.

A copy is the writer’s own sentences, usually the first few, cut short. It feels safe because every word is correct. The examiner cannot give you marks for English that is not yours.

An opinion is your own view of the topic. A précis reports the writer’s view, even where you think he is wrong.

What the examiner looks for

FPSC publishes no marking scheme for the précis. What it publishes is the syllabus and the examiners’ notes on the scripts they marked, and from those two we can say what earns the fifteen marks.

1. That you found the main line. The CE-2019 examiners complained that “Many of the students deviated from the contents of the passage given for Précis.”⁴ A smooth précis that gets the passage wrong earns little.
2. That you used your own words. The same examiners wrote that candidates “copied sentences from the reading passage instead of using their own language”. They said it of the comprehension answers, and the reason holds for the précis too.
3. That you added nothing. The CE-2019 examiners found candidates who “expressed personal views and coined their own stories”. No opinion, no example of your own, no correction of the writer’s facts.
4. That your English is correct. The CE-2016 examiners listed “not writing in third person or past tense, capitalization, punctuations and spellings” among the basic mistakes.³ A précis is a piece of English and is marked as one.
5. That you kept to the length. Some papers give a limit, and most do not. The next lesson shows how to set one for yourself.

These five are the test you will run on every précis in this course.

3. Do it with me

From here to the lesson on the title, we will carry one real passage from the first reading to the finished précis. It is Q.2 of the 2026 paper, which asked: “Write a précis (100 words) of the following passage and suggest a suitable title.”² It is printed here exactly as FPSC printed it, with its slips of grammar (“did lot of work”, “good master”), which you report in correct English and never copy.

One of the outstanding features of the century has been the improvement of living of working man, greater political power, more wealth and leisure, and better facilities for health, security and education. In early civilizations, most communities were sharply divided into two classes, those who labored and those who did not. The small number of rulers - kings, priests, military leaders - lived in great comfort, and did very little work. The vast majority of the population enjoyed very few comforts, did lot of work, and had scarcely any political power. In some societies, there was an even more wretched class, the slaves, who had no rights at all. The Industrial Revolution of Europe led to the production of vast quantities of goods, and workers began to be dissatisfied with their poverty. The factory owners needed skilled workers, and gradually they realized that they must show goodwill to their workforce, in order to stay in business. As in many other reforms, some enlightened slowly spread that workers were entitled to some consideration. Since men were free to work for any master they chose, good master soon had the pick of the workers and old-fashioned employers found themselves with a factory full of lower-grade workforce. Such a situation soon led to an all-round improvement in standards, and good employers tried to raise working conditions still higher. These improvements were speeded up by the increased organization of workers in Trade Union movements, particularly in low-standard factories, where the owner often had to deal with strike action by dissatisfied workers. Now that the working classes are getting better and better working conditions, the need to strike has lessened considerably; and employers and workers alike have come to realise that they depend on each other for their livelihood.

Read it once, slowly. You are not writing a précis yet. Today you only learn to judge one. Here are three short versions by three candidates. Test each one against the five checks before you read mine.

Version 1

One of the outstanding features of the century has been the improvement of living of working man. The Industrial Revolution of Europe led to the production of vast quantities of goods. These improvements were speeded up by Trade Union movements.

My test. Main line: partly, but the old world of rulers and workers and the end of the story are missing. Own words: no, all three sentences are lifted from the passage, slips included. Added nothing: yes. English: it is the writer’s English, not the candidate’s. This is a copy.

Version 2

Labour in Pakistan is still exploited. Factory owners pay low wages, and the government must enforce the minimum wage and protect trade unions so that workers can live with dignity.

My test. Main line: no. The passage is about how the working man’s life improved, and says nothing of Pakistan or the minimum wage. Added nothing: it adds everything. The CE-2019 examiners’ words fit it exactly: the candidate has “expressed personal views”. It may be true. It is not a précis.

Version 3

The writer said that the working man’s life had improved greatly in the century. Once a few rulers had lived in comfort while most people worked hard and had little power. Industry, the employers’ need for skilled workers, competition for good workers and trade unions had raised his standards, and now workers and employers knew that they depended on each other.

My test. Main line: yes, the change, the old world, the causes of the change and where it ended. Own words: yes. Added nothing: yes. English: correct, in the third person and the past tense. Length: 61 words, well inside the 100 the paper allowed. This is the beginning of a précis. The lessons that follow will show how a candidate gets here by method rather than by luck, and how to use the full hundred words well.

4. Now you

Try each exercise on paper before you open the answer.

Exercise 1. Here is a passage of 110 words, written for this course, and four versions of it. Name each version: a copy, a paraphrase, notes, an opinion, or a précis.

Karachi gets little rain, yet when it rains the water does more harm than good. It floods the streets, enters houses and runs into the sea within hours. In many villages people still dig ponds to keep the rain of a few weeks for the dry months that follow. Our cities have forgotten this simple habit. Concrete covers the ground, and water that could fill wells is lost in drains. Some say that only large dams can end the shortage of water. Dams are needed, but a city that stored its own rain on roofs and in parks would need less water from far away and would suffer fewer floods.

(a) Karachi rain: harm > good. Floods, houses, sea. Villages: ponds. Cities: concrete, drains. Dams? Store rain on roofs and parks.

(b) The writer said that rain in a city like Karachi ran off as floods. Cities should store their rain, as villages did. Dams were needed, but stored rain would mean fewer floods and less water from far away.

(c) Karachi gets little rain, yet when it rains the water does more harm than good. It floods the streets, enters houses and runs into the sea within hours.

(d) The writer said that although Karachi received little rain, the rain that fell did more damage than good, because it flooded roads, got into homes and flowed into the sea in a few hours. In villages people still made ponds to save the rain of a few weeks for the dry months after it, but cities had lost this habit…

Exercise 2. Without looking back, write down the five things the examiner looks for in a précis.

Exercise 3. This one goes back to the lesson on the three hours. How many minutes does Q.2 get in the plan, and what do you do if the précis is not finished when they run out?

5. What usually goes wrong

1. Copying the opening. The candidate writes the first three sentences of the passage and stops at the limit. The main point is often in the middle or at the end, and the words are not his. The repair is to find the main line first, which the next lessons teach, and then write it in new words.

2. Paraphrasing. Every sentence of the passage is put into new words, one by one, and the result is as long as the passage. The repair is to decide what can go before writing anything.

3. Writing notes. “Industrial Revolution → goods → workers unhappy → unions.” The examiner wants sentences. The repair is to turn each note into a full sentence and join them into one paragraph.

4. Giving an opinion. “This is a very good passage and all workers should read it”, or a paragraph on labour in Pakistan. The repair is to cut every sentence the writer did not say.

5. Correcting the writer. If the writer says something you think is wrong, the précis still reports it, because the précis is his, not yours.