Dear Aspirant,
Writing a good and marks-fetching précis is a tough task; but it can be easily tamed provided that you keep in mind some certain key points. Friend, the passage for précis in the regulatory body exams contain maximum 500 words which you can go through within 3 minutes provided that you have good reading speed with better comprehension. If not, then go through the passage again for another 3 minutes so as to get at the exact theme of the passage. Then, it’s time to provide a suitable title, which you generally skim out either in the very first paragraph or in the concluding paragraph of the passage. The title should not be too long neither it should be too short; rather, it should be such that can covey the whole idea of your answer. You can use a hyphen or colon to make the title concise and easy to understand. Suppose, the given passage is based on ‘Climate change and its various effects on various entities’.
The above expression as a title can be written variously as-
various effects of climate change,
Climate Change: Its Effect on various entities….
Entities affected by climate change,
Various Entities-affected by climate change,
How climate change affects various entities
….so on and so forth.
While giving a title, you can drop the use of article or articles ‘a, an, the’ unless necessary. You can also drop the use of any finite verb. Such as ‘Climate change affecting various entities’; you can drop ‘is’ which is a finite verb here. The title in full sentence ‘A committee has been constituted to look after the prevailing jungles’ may be expressed in title as ‘A committee constituted to look after jungles’ etc.
In fact, as the headlines of a newspaper or any journal invite you to read the content so is in the case of the title of your précis. The title of your précis should be inviting. It must prove itself a hook that arouses interest in the reader to read the content. If the message of the content does not satisfy the title, you will deserve fewer marks. The hint for a suitable title for your précis generally lies either in the first or in the last paragraph of the passage as I have told you earlier.
Generally, the given passage revolves around a particular term (word, phrase, sentence etc.). Keeping the term into account, provide the title. Please, remember that you should supply a suitable title first and then write the précis so as to keep away any deviation. Please, use the key word used in the title various times the answer to keep away deviation.