Effective Note-Making Techniques
Effective Note-Making Techniques
Characteristics of Notes
Mechanics of Note-Making
1. Use of Abbreviations :
(a) Capitalized first letter of words: UNO. CBSE, NCERT etc.
(b) Arithmetic symbols: (><, --------------, kg, % etc.)
(c) Commonly used : (in newspapers, magazines etc.) : govt. etc., e.g.,
(d) Invented : First and last few letters of the world with a dot at the end
(edun.,poln., popn, Mfg.)
2. Proper indentation
Heading Title
3. Make use of words and phrases only. Avoid full length sentences.
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4. Give Appropriate Title : The title may be given at the beginning. The notes are of 3
marks and should not be more than 1/3 of the passage’s length.
Making Scheme / pattern for Note Making and Summarization based on a
passage.
1. Note Making
Key to abbreviations
Problm – problem
Trpnt – transparent
Rqd – required
Dprsd – depressed
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1. How does television affect our lives? It can be very helpful to people who carefully
choose the shows that they watch television can increase our knowledge of the
outside world; there are high quality programmes that help us understand many fields
of study, science, medicine, the arts and so on. Moreover, television benefits very
old people who can’t often leave the house, as well as patients in hospital. It also
offers non-native speakers the advantage of daily informal language practice. They
can increase their vocabulary and practice listening.
2. On the other hand, there are several serious disadvantages to television. Of course,
it provides us with a pleasant way to relax and spend our free time, but in some
countries, people watch television for an average of six hours or more a day. Many
children stare at a television screen for more hours each day than they do at anything
else, including studying and sleeping. It’s clear that the tube has a powerful influence
on their lives and that its influence is often negative.
3. Recent studies show that after only thirty seconds of watching television, a person’s
brain ‘relaxes’ the same way that it does just before the person falls asleep. Another
effect of television on the human brain is that it seems to cause poor concentration.
Children who view a lot of television can often concentrate on a subject for only
fifteen to twenty minutes. They can pay attention only for the amount of time
between commercials.
4. Another disadvantage is that television often causes people to become dissatisfied
with their own lives. Real life does not seem as exciting to these people as the lives
of actors on the screen To many people television becomes more real than reality and
their own lives boring. Also many people get upset or depressed when they can’t
solve problems in real life as quickly as television actors seem to.
5. Before a child is fourteen years old, he or she views eleven thousand murders on the
screen. He or she begins to believe that there is nothing strange about fights, killings
and other kinds of violence. Many studies show that people become more violent
after certain watching programmes. They may even do the things that they saw in a
violent show.
1. Make notes on the above passage using proper abbreviations (at least
four) and suggest a suitable title. (3 + 1 + 1 = 05 Marks) Notes.
1. (a) Title : The Impact of Television Notes:
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1. Benefits of T.V.
1.1 Inc. our know of o/s world
1.2 High quality programmes
1.2.1 Fields – science, medicine, arts
1.3 Old people, patients – can’t leave house
4. Other effects
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Key to Abbreviations
1. Inc. – increases
2. o/s – outside
3. know – knowledge
4. lang. – language
5. prac. – practice
6. T.V. – television
7. difft. – differentiate
8. b/w – between
SUMMARY
The Impact of Television
Television viewing is both a boon and a bane. It’s an easily available source of
entertainment for everyone, even old people and patients It offers high quality educational
programmes. But it has a bad side too. It drains our brain of energy and causes poor
concentration in students. Violent shows often lead to violent behaviours in real life among
children and adults. People often get too attached with T.V. shows and actors that they are
unable to differentiate between reel und real life. Thus, T.V. can be helpful to only those
people who carefully choose the shows.
SOLVED EXAMPLE–II
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow.
In Delhi, where 80% of the people are pedestrians, in some stage of their
commuting, least attention is paid to pedestrian paths. Delhi’s side walks are too narrow,
very poorly maintained and full of potholes, poles, junction boxes and dangerous electrical
installation, not to speak of the garbage dumps that stink and stare at the pedestrian. Ashram
Chowk is a good case in point where thousands of pedestrian change direction from the
Mathura road radial to the Ring Road. A flyover facilitates the automobiles. While the
pedestrian is orphaned by the investment hungry authorities. One corner of the Ashram
Chowk has a ridiculous imitation wood sculpture with an apology of a fountain and across
the same Chowk you have the open mouthed massive garbage dump right on the pedestrain
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path in full exhibition for the benefit of the public. These symbols of poor taste and abject
apathy are then connected by narrow dangerous and often waterlogged footpaths for the
helpless pedestrian to negotiate.
At night, street lighting in the central median light up the carriageway for cars and leave
the pedestrian areas in darkness.
Delhi’s citizens leave and want to get to their destination as fast they can. No one
wants to linger on the road, no leisure walks, no one looks a stranger in the eye. It is on the
pedestrian path that citizens encounter head on the poor public management and the excuse
called multiplicity of authorities. One agency makes the road, another digs it up to lay
cables, third one comes after months to clear up the mess and the cycle of unaccountability
goes on. Meanwhile crores are spent in reparing the carriageway for vehicles and in
construction of the flyovers without a care for the pedestrian below. Solution offerd is to
make an expensive underpass or an ugly foot overbridge, ostensibly for facilitating the
pedestrian, while in reality they only facilitate the car to move faster at the expense of the
pedestrian. Take Kashmiri gate, ITO, Ashram Chowk, AIIMS. or Dhaula Kuan, at all these
important, pedestrian crossover points, the story is the same. They have pulled the sidewalk
from the pedestrian’s feet.
In modern cities across the world, the pedestrian is king. The floor of the city is
designed and maintained as an inclusive environment, helping the physically challenged,
the old and the infirm children and the ordinary citizens to move joyful across the city,
Delhi aspires to be world class city. Hopefully the authorities would look once again at the
floor of Delhi.
The pleasure of strolling on the road is deeply connected to our sense of citizenship
and sense of belonging. Pride in the city grows only on a well designed floor of the city.
1. On the basis of your reading of the above passage, make-notes using heading and
sub-heading. Also use recognized abbreviations wherever necessary (minimum 4)
Supply a suitable title. (1+1+3-05 Marks)
2. Write the summary of the passage in about 50 words. (03 Marks) TITLE :
‘PEDESTRIANS IN DELHI’
Or
‘DELHI UNSAFE FOR PEDESTRIANS’
Notes :
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1. Delhi : a major city for pedestrian
1.1 Poor maint. of sidewalks.
1.2 dangerous elect installation.
1.3 garbage dump.
1.4 Waterlogged footpaths.
2. Life in Delhi for citizens. 2.1 Fast life
2.2 Poor public manag.
2.3 Multiplicity of auth.
2.4 Unaccountability
2.5 Constly constructions but useless.
Key to Abbreviations
Maint – Maintainance
Elect – Electrical
Authorities
Child – Children
Summary (50 words) Delhi, although is a major city for the pedesatrians, provides
least attention in the matter of facilities. The sidewalks are dangerous, narrow, poorly
maintained, and are full of potholes, garbage dumps, dangerous electrical fittings and stinky
urinals. Public management is poor. Unaccountability can be seen on the part of authorities.
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Money is misused without providing care to the users. In the modern city, where pedestrian
is the king, the floor of city should he maintained by keeping in mind the physically
challenged, old and infirm children. For making Delhi world class, the authorities would
once again look at the floor of Delhi.
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publicly flogged and put behind the bars. The education system of the country should be
re-oriented to inculcate a spirit of honesty amongst the people.
All ministers and public servants should be made to declare their assets. The vigilance
department should keep a constant eye on the corrupt officers and other public servants.
Ministers and senior officials must set noble examples of an honest living free from
corruption, bribery, nepotism and immorality. The law of the land should be provided with
more teeth to deal with corrupt elements. Corruption at any level, is bad. The Government
should launch a vigorous campaign against this social evil. Charity, however, must begin
at home. (Words 484)
(a) On the basis of your reading of the above passage make notes on it, using headings
and sub-headings. Use recognizable abbreviations (wherever necessary- minimum 4)
and a format you consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it. (5 marks)
(b) Write a summary of the passage in about 50 words. 3 marks
Ans. Title – Corruption
Note- Making
1. Corruption & it’s impact on social life
1.1 nepo. & dishonesty
1.2 matter of shame & humiliation
2. Prev. of corruption at different levels
2.1 eco. 2.2 Social
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4.4 Strict laws for corrupt elements
4.5 Govt. to launch vigorous campaign against corruption
Key to abbreviations and symbols
nepo.- nepotism prey –
prevalence eco – economic
admn. –
Administrative org. –
organizations empt. –
Employment
PASSAGE - 4
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:-
The conditions of the slum areas in metropolitan cities have deteriorated to such an extent
due to the high density of population that the people there hardly enjoy even the basic
amenities. The lanes are narrow and the houses are nothing but a single room tenement
without the facilities of an open courtyard or an enclosure, thus depriving the people of
natural gifts like sunshine and air.
In such areas, people use common latrines and water taps. Some of the slum areas
do not even have single rooms, they are thick clusters of small, dilapidated mud huts, the
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roofs and ceilings of which are made of scraps of wood, gunny sacks, metal or some sort
of waste material. Sometimes. 10 to 12 people live, eat and sleep in the same room. The
streets are narrow and the sewage water stagnates in open surface drains, which emit bad
smell. The children often play in places where the drains are used as open latrines.
Living conditions in main urban slums are worse than those in the poorest rural areas
of the country. This can be attributed to the slum’s exceptional unhealthy environment
Many of the most serious diseases in cities are ‘environmental’ because they are transmitted
through air. water, soil and food or through insect or animal vectors.
The concentration of people in areas where the provision of water, sanitation,
garbage collection and health care is inadequate creates the conditions where infectious and
parasitic diseases thrive and spread. Around half the slum population is suffering from one
or more of the diseases associated with inadequate provision of water and sanitation.
Despite the exterior appearance of chaos, slum life is highly structured, with many
economic, religious, caste and political interests expressed in the daily activity. Living
conditions are extremely difficult, and slum dwellers fear the constant threat of having their
homes bulldozed in municipal slum clearance' efforts. Nonetheless, slum life is animated
by a strong sense of joie de vivre.
Growth of slums is a problem peculiar to the urban areas. Slums come up near
industrial areas, railway lines, ports, platforms, river banks, large drains and around
wholesale markets. They emerge in metropolitan cities and in the million plus cities. In
metropolitan cities, more than 25 per cent of the population lives in slums. Dharavi near
Mumbai is the largest slum in Asia.
The houses in slums are mostly kutcha houses made of bricks, mud, tin sheets,
bamboo, tarpaulin sheets etc.
The living area is not more than ten square metres, which is used mainly for storage
of household items, whereas cooking, bathing and sleeping is done mainly in the open.
There are common water taps and public conveniences. An open space, shaded by trees,
may be used as the community space. Slums are often prone to floods, waterlogging, fire
etc. There is no proper drainage and sewerage and this leads to :e of water-borne diseases
like cholera, gastro-enteritis and jaundice
The slum dwellers are mostly rural migrants who live near their workplaces, since
they cannot afford high transportation costs. Generally, workers from the same community
or those coming from the same place and working at the same place, live together. The slum
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dwellers also include the self-employed, petty traders, household servants, vendors and
hawkers.
The efforts by various governments for resettlement of slum dwellers have not been
successful, because often the resettlement colonies are on the outskirts-far away from the
workplace.
a. Make Notes on the above passage using proper abbreviations (4 ) and a suitable
title. 5 Marks b. Write the summary of the above passage in about 50 words.
3 Marks PASSAGE - 5
Gender sensitization is the art of being sensitive to the ways people think about gender so
that they rely less on traditions and outdated views of rules of men and women.
I believe that education or schooling is a process through which society creates
the kind of individuals we wish to see in the world. Hence, it’s imperative that school
curriculum lays strong emphasis on inculcating values of equality, inclusivity and
diversity, all of which are essential for building a healthy society.
In a patriarchal country like India, where stark gender roles, overt gender
discrimination and devaluation of women and girls is ingrained into our daily lives. I feel
that it is extremely important to identify and address this problem from a very young age.
Boys and girls start developing their gendered identities from birth. The upbringing at home
also influences them. While egalitarian gender roles may not be present at home, the school
can become a space of transformation where children, especially those hailing from
disadvantaged backgrounds, learn to question gender roles, identify areas of gendered
discrimination, and work towards changing them.
In many families, in both rural and urban areas, while boys are encouraged to study
and have a career, girls are taught to concentrate on household chores. Only when both boys
and girls learn to question this typical gender bias at school, will the situation at home also
change for the better.
The different geographical and cultural contexts I have had the opportunity to work
in has taught me that gender roles and inequalities are very contextual, and rooted in cultural
and social practices. Thus, to have a national policy addressing gender equality is nol
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affluent. At a more local level, we need clear directives to understand and address specific
gender norms through the schooling process.
For the longest time, we have been working on bringing girls to school and ensuring
that they complete their schooling. We assume that schooling and academic ability will
empower a girl through financial and social independence. Why then, do we still have a
society where women and girls fear for their safety and well-being, and are considered
‘burdens’ on their families? We may have been able to bring wmen to the forefront, but
without addressing and challenging gender norms at a nascent stage of social development,
we cannot hope to work towards a society where women and girls feel safe and valued.
Imperative to this process is the need to working with boys. From a young age, i.e.
through schooling itself, if boys are knight to understand how an egalitarian society in
beneficial for all by questioning gender norms, only then will boys learn to treat women as
equals. Thus education can play a critical role in making the society safer for women, and
that can happen by making gender sensitization a pad of the school curriculum.
The importance of gender sensitisation in schools has been recognized and given due
importance in all policy outlining quality education. The Right to Educution Act 2009, and
its operating arm, the Sarva Shiksha Ahhiyan, has clearly mentioned that gender equality
is one of the expected outcomes of elementary education in the country. Schools need to
address unequal gender rules at a critical stage, when children are growing up. Shouldn’t
we insist that schools give due importance to gender sensitization and ensure that it is very
much a part of our children’s schooling process?
If you want to see a society devoid of discrimination, one where women and girls are
not treated as inferior, and where equal opportunities and rights are given to all women,
then I urge you to sign this petition, emphasize on the importance of gender sensitization
and do your part to easure that over time, we move towards a more equal and inclusive
society.
(Approx 600 words)
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PASSAGE - 6
Read the given passage carefully:
Fasting is said to bring a host of benefits provided if done under medical supervision.
Doctors explain how to go about it. Food is to the body what fuel is to a motor vehicle. It
provides energy, helps repair and rejuvenation and confers many other benefits. A lot of
research has been done and is being done on fasting. When one fasts, the digestive organs
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get rest and all body mechanisms are cleansed. While fasting, the natural process of toxin
excretion continues while influx of new toxins is reduced. The energy usually used for
digestion is redirected to immune function and cell growth. Fasting helps you heal with
greater speed, cleanses your liver, kidneys and colon, purifies your blood, helps you lose
excess weight and water, flushes out toxins, clears the eyes and tongue and cleanses the
breath.
Another research says fasting, even occasionally, helps in de-toxification. Through
fasting we restrict digestive activity and so energy is utilised to cleanse different systems.
Fasting improves metabolism, sharpens the senses, calms the mind, helps loose weight,
improves general immunity, improves concentration and mental clarity. Fasting, if
understood and done under supervision, has tremendous benefits and impacts one at various
planes; mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. Specifically it serves as an aid to effective
detoxification, helps in repair and rejuvenation, offers rest to the gastro-intestinal system
and promotes mobilisation of excess fat.
The crucial point to note is the difference between fasting and starvation. Research
suggests there are major health benefits to calorie restriction. Among other things it slows
down the aging process. According to the US National Academy of Sciences, other benefits
include stress resistance, increased insulin sensitivity and increased lifespan.
Glucose is the body’s primary fuel source and is essential for the brain’s functioning.
When denied glucose for more than 4 - 8 hours, the body converts glycogen stored in the
liver into a usable form of fuel and supplements it with small amounts of protein. This will
last for upto 12 hours before the body turns to glycogen stored in muscles. If glucose is still
denied at this point, the body continues to use fat for as long as it is available. If the fast is
not broken, starvation occours, as the body begins to use protein for fuel. Death can occur
if fasting is pursued to the point of complete starvation.
Questions:
1. On the basis of your reading of the above passage make notes in points only using
abbreviations wherver necessary. Supply a suitable title. 5 Marks
2. Write a summary of the passage in about 50 words using the notes made. 3 Marks
PASSAGE 7
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2. Write a summary of the passage in 50 words. 3 Marks
PASSAGE
In the Vedic calendar, summer is a time for happiness, abundance, and celebration. Trees
are laden with fruits, nature’s bountiful Sustenance. Vegetables and herbs are filling out the
garden. Tall grasses grace meadows, and children play outdoors. Natuarlly, we experience
fullness, fulfillment, and leisure. Cultures all over the world celebrate summer by
venerating solar deities, celebrating bountiful crops, feasting outdoors and honouring their
spiritual reunion with the earth.
To achieve a sense of balance, cooling activities are sought to lessen the heat of the
season. Bathing festivals are a prominent part of the Vedic culture. For example, Snanam
yatra is an auspicious bathing festival occurring in the summer. The season is active and
mostly lived outdoors. It provides you with endless chances to cultivate a life of inner
harmony—ahimsa—and to ward off heated emotions and anxieties in-herent with living in
overdrive.
When we take care to cross over this season’s rhythms with mindfulness, we find
plentiful energy to celebrate the abundance and richness of summer that surrounds us. On
the other hand, when we are out of balance with seasonal rhythms, we may find ourselves
listless, lethargic and exhausted from the heat of the summer. To prevent dehydration, drink
plenty of water. If your pitta, fire humour, is not well cared for during the spring season, it
will manifest though heat-related conditions causing general pitta symptioms like weak
digestion, fevers, skin disorders, bile accumulation, sunstroke, irritability and listlessness.
This is a wonderful time for rejuvenating baths, swimming and wading and taking
‘moon baths’ by sitting in the moonlight to assuage mind and spirit with Goddess Lalita’s
cooling rays. Surround yourself with fragrant scents from flowers and pure essential oils,
and wear light, natural fibres and light comfortable clothing. Observe two days of fasting
or semi-fasting on Ekadashi.
To strengthen digestion, take light meals with fresh salads; eat chapatis with light
grain such as cracked wheat, bulgur and basmati rice and have sprouted beans and dhals or
bean dishes made with mung, kidney, lentil and soybeans. Eat plenty of fruits such as figs,
grapes, mangoes, melons, peaches and pomegranates. Steam or lightly cook your
vegetables. Beets, brocoli, cauliflower, celery, okra, radishes, snow peas, string beans,
summer squash, sweet corn, sweet pepers, and Swiss chard are a few of the prolific variety
of garden fresh foods available to you during the summer.
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Take an occasional afternoon siesta. Follow the rhythms of summer and recover
playfulness, joy and abundance.
Summer is a wonderful time for enjoying nature’s abundant foods and harnessing
their cooling energies to maintain balance during the solar activities of this season. Your
summer menu should have plenty of colourful provisions for your nourishment.
Summer is your chance to learn the exquisite art of rolling out Indian flatbreads
and dunking them into the blissfully golden nourishment of summer dhals. Living Ahimsa
Diet, Nourishing Love & Life.
Questions
1. On the basis of your understading of the above pasage, make notes on it using headings
and sub headings. Use recognizable abbreviations (wherever necessary–minimum
day) and a format you consider suitable. Give suitable title. (5 Marks)
Read the following passage given below and answer the questions the follow:
The Great wall of China was built to link existing fortifications into a united defense system
and better keep invading Mongol tribes out of china. It is the largest man – made monument
ever to have been built and it is said that it is the only one visible from space. Many
thousands of people must have given their lives to build this huge construction.
The great wall of china is a series of towers made of stone, brick, earth, wood and
other materials, generally built along an east-to- west line across the historical northern
borders of china to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions
of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were being built as
early as the 7th century BCE, these later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are
now collectively referred to as the Great wall Especially famous is the wall built (220-206
BCE) by Qin shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. Since then,
the great wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained and enhanced, the majority of the
existing wall is from the ming dynasty (1368-1644) other purposes of the Great wall have
included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the
silk road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and
emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by
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the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, gharrison stations, signaling capabilities
through the means of smoke or fire and the fact that the path of the Great wall also served
as a transportation corridor.
The Great wall stretches from Dandong in the east to Lop Lake in the west, along
an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. A comprehensive
archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls
measure 8,850 km. This is made up of 6,259 km sections of actual wall, 359 km of trenches
and 2,232 km of natural defensiove barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological
survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measures out to be 21,196km.
King Zheng of Qin conquered the last of his opponents and unified china as the
First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty Qin shi Huang in 221 BCE. Intending to impose
centralized rule and prevent the resurgence of feudal lords, he ordered the destruction of
some sections of the walls, however, he ordered building of new walls to connect the
remaining fortifications along the empire’s northern frontier. Transporting the large
quantity of materials required for construction was difficult, so builders always tried to use
local resources. Stones from the mountains were used over mountain ranges, while earth
was used for construction in the plains.
The Great wall concept was revived under the Ming dynasty in the 14th century, to
gain a clear upper Hand over the Mongolian tribes.
1.1 On the basis of your reading of the above passage make notes on it, using headings and
subheadings. Use recognizable abbreviations ( Wherever necessary, minimum four)
and a format you consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it. 5
1.2 Write a summary of the passage in about 50 words. 3
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