Better understanding synonyms and improving your paraphrasing ability is definitely going to help you to succeed in the IELTS Reading test.
Improving your skills in this area will help across all questions, but will particularly aid you in summary completion tasks.
Summary completion tasks require you to read a passage of text and then apply your understanding of the text to a task.
The task will either ask you to select the correct word from a list of provided words that best fit in the summary (based on the information in the main passage) or it will ask you to locate a word or words from the original text to insert into a summary in the correct place.
Tips for this task!
- The summary sentences normally follow the order of the original text. This should give you a rough idea of where to find the answer in the text.
- You don’t need to worry if you don’t understand every part of the text – as long as you can identify the main ideas and supporting facts
- The summary sentence must make grammatical sense, so consider whether the gap requires a noun, verb, adjective etc. This will help you to narrow the selection of words that would work in the gap
- Don’t spend too long reading the original passage and trying to understand every part. As long as you get the main ‘gist’ of the text, you will be able to complete the summary task
- Do plenty of synonym and paraphrasing practice ahead of the Reading test!
- Spend more of your time reading the summary sentence, finding the information in the original text and identifying the word needed to fill the gap.
- Make sure you read the instructions carefully as the exact task changes every time. Particularly pay attention to how you are asked to record your answer. Sometimes you may need to write out the word/s and at other times you may just need to write the words corresponding letter. At other times, if you are asked to find words from the original text to go in the gap, it may specify no more than one/two/three words so make sure you are choosing and recording the correct number of words!
Google tackles the black box problem with Explainable AI
By Leo Kelion
There is a problem with artificial intelligence.
It can be amazing at churning through gigantic amounts of data to solve challenges that humans struggle with. But understanding how it makes its decisions are often very difficult to do, if not impossible.
That means when an AI model works it is not as easy as it should be to make further refinements, and when it exhibits odd behaviour it can be hard to fix.
But at an event in London this week, Google’s cloud computing division pitched a new facility that it hopes will give it the edge on Microsoft and Amazon, which dominate the sector. Its name: Explainable AI.
To start with, it will give information about the performance and potential shortcomings of the face- and object-detection models. But in time the firm intends to offer a wider set of insights to help make the “thinking” of AI algorithms less mysterious and therefore more trustworthy.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50506431
Task:
Complete this summary using words from the box below.
An _________________ has been identified with developments in artificial intelligence. Scientists recognise that artificial intelligence makes life easier for humans as it is able to ____________ very large amounts of _____________. This causes difficulties when trying to make _______________ or when trying to fix the machines. Google, this week, ______________ a new facility called Explainable AI. The new feature will share information about any ___________ in the face and objection detection _______________. This should help people to find AI more _____________.
| Process | Improvements | Issue | Sold | Functions |
| Announced | Faults | Information | Announcement | Reliable |
Answers:
An issue has been identified with developments in artificial intelligence. Scientists recognise that artificial intelligence makes life easier for humans as it is able to process very large amounts of information.
This causes difficulties when trying to make improvements or when trying to fix the machines. Google, this week, announced a new facility called Explainable AI.
The new feature will share information about any faults in the face and objection detection function. This should help people to find AI more reliable.