Almost every English language examination paper contains a question on writing a precis, or summary, as it is sometimes called. There are two reasons for this. First, examiners recognize that the ability to reduce a passage to about one—fourth or even less of its original length without leaving out the important points is very useful in many professions. Perhaps the man who does this more than anyone else is the newspaper reporter, who listens to long speeches and then reduces them into a few paragraphs before they are printed. Government officials, businessmen, lawyers, radio editors and the police, to mention a few, often find it necessary to summarize a report so that someone with little time on hand can quickly get what he needs without having to read a lengthy piece. There is a second important reason for developing this skill: it is an excellent mental exercise. It trains and tests your ability to understand the real meaning of a passage, to follow an argument and to separate the important from the unimportant. It is very easy to read a passage and then think that you understand it; writing a precis will soon show whether you really do understand it or not. It will also test your own vocabulary and command of language when you try to reproduce the writer's ideas in your own words. Very closely connected with this skill is the ability to pick out certain points and ignore others, when we are asked to do so. In this case, it does not mean that the points left out are less important but that for some reason they are not required. The passage is mainly about______.