Note-making is an active reading strategy that involves extracting the most critical information from a text and organizing it logically. Its primary purposes are:
1. Enhanced Comprehension: The act of identifying and structuring key points deepens your understanding of the passage.
2. Efficient Retention: Organized notes are easier to recall and revise than large blocks of text.
3. Basis for Summarization: Well-made notes serve as the perfect blueprint for writing a concise summary, ensuring you include all essential information without redundancy.

Adhering to a specific format ensures clarity, hierarchy, and ease of understanding.
1. Title/Heading: Begin with a suitable, concise title that accurately reflects the main theme of the passage. This should be centered or clearly placed at the top.
2. Main Headings (Points): These represent the primary topics or distinct ideas discussed in the passage. Each main heading should be a crisp phrase, not a full sentence, and should be aligned to the left margin.
3. Sub-headings (Sub-points): These elaborate on the Main Headings. They provide supporting details, examples, or explanations related to the main point above them. Sub-headings are typically indented from the Main Headings, indicating their subordinate role.
4. Sub-sub-headings (Sub-sub-points): If a sub-heading requires further specific details or finer divisions, you can add sub-sub-headings. These are further indented from the sub-headings.
5. Numbering and Indentation: Use a consistent numbering system (e.g., 1., 1.1, 1.1.1 or A., A.1, A.1.1). Proper indentation is crucial as it visually represents the hierarchy of information, making your notes easy to scan and comprehend.
6. No Full Sentences: Notes should be in point form, using phrases and keywords rather than complete sentences. This forces conciseness and highlights essential information.
7. Abbreviations and Symbols: Employ abbreviations and standard symbols to make your notes even more concise. This is a key feature of effective note-making.
8. Key to Abbreviations: At the end of your notes, provide a "Key to Abbreviations" (or "Glossary of Abbreviations"). List all the abbreviations and symbols you have used, explaining their full forms. This ensures anyone reading your notes can understand them, especially your examiner.

The art of note-making lies in distinguishing the crucial from the superfluous.
1. Initial Overview: Skim the entire passage once to grasp the general subject matter and the author's overall intention.
2. Paragraph-by-Paragraph Breakdown (The Core Process):
- Identify Paragraph Main Ideas: Read each paragraph carefully. Try to identify the single most important idea or argument presented in that paragraph. This will often become a Main Heading in your notes. Sometimes, a paragraph might introduce a new major aspect, requiring a new Main Heading.
- Extract Supporting Details: Once you have the paragraph's main idea, go back and identify the crucial information, examples, statistics, or explanations that support or elaborate on that main idea. These will form your Sub-headings and, if necessary, Sub-sub-headings. Focus on concrete facts and essential concepts.
- Underline and Condense: As you read, underline key phrases and then condense them into short, impactful notes. Avoid including descriptive language or lengthy explanations that are not central to the information.
3. Synthesize and Structure: As you extract points, consider how they relate to each other. Group related sub-points under appropriate main headings. Ensure a logical flow from one main point to the next. Sometimes, information for one main point might be spread across multiple paragraphs; you'll need to gather it under a single main heading.
4. Focus on Nouns and Verbs: When forming your notes, prioritize nouns and action verbs. For instance, instead of "The government took steps to improve education," simply note "Govt. steps improve educ."

Using abbreviations and symbols is fundamental to efficient note-making.
● Standard and Common Abbreviations:
- Use universally recognized abbreviations that are understood without explanation:
- e.g. (for example)
- i.e. (that is)
- etc. (and so on)
- Dr. (Doctor)
- Prof. (Professor)
- Govt. (Government)
- Ltd. (Limited)
- UNO (United Nations Organization)
- Abbreviate common words that appear frequently:
- Edu. (Education)
- Devt. (Development)
- Info. (Information)
- Imp. (Important)
- Max. (Maximum)
- Min. (Minimum)
● Self-Created Abbreviations (Personalized but Clear):
- For words that are specific to the passage and are repeated often, you can create your own abbreviations. For example, if a passage is about "climate change," you might abbreviate it to "CC." If it discusses "pollution," use "poll."
- Crucial Rule: Any self-created abbreviation must be included in your "Key to Abbreviations" at the end of your notes.
● Symbols for Efficiency:
- & (and)
- % (percentage)
- + (positive/addition)
- - (negative/subtraction)
- = (equals)
- → (leads to/results in/implies)
- ↑ (increase)
- ↓ (decrease)
- ∴ (therefore)
- w/ (with)
- w/o (without)

The summary is the final output, translating your structured notes back into coherent, flowing prose.
1. Strictly Use Your Notes: The summary must be derived solely from the key points you have extracted and organized in your notes. Do not introduce any new information from the original passage that you omitted in your notes, nor inject your personal opinions or external knowledge.
2. Write in Full Sentences: Unlike notes, the summary is a complete, well-formed paragraph written using grammatically correct sentences.
3. One Continuous Paragraph: The summary should be presented as a single, cohesive paragraph. Avoid using bullet points or multiple paragraphs.
4. Adhere to Word Limit: The word limit for the summary is typically 50-80 words. This requires extreme conciseness. Remove any redundant phrases, combine short sentences where logical, and focus only on the most essential information from your notes.
5. Maintain Objectivity: The summary should accurately reflect the main ideas of the original passage without bias or interpretation from your side. It should be a neutral representation of the author's key points.
6. Ensure Cohesion and Flow: Use appropriate transition words and phrases (e.g., "furthermore," "however," "consequently," "in addition") to ensure smooth connections between sentences and ideas, creating a unified and readable summary.