This is a question that I have been asked more times than I can remember by my English students. The answer is very simple. In life, time is not always on our side and we often need to keep it short and sweet. Although sweating to reduce a lengthy passage to a hundred words within twenty-five minutes is not everyone's cup of tea, it is bound to help you later in life. Let us explore a few of the many examples where summarising occurs in one form or the other.

·         University students n...