Read the passages below and summarize them using one sentence in not more than 75 words(30-35 words). Type your response in the comment section at the bottom of the screen. You will have 10 minutes to finish each passage.Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the passage.
1.Never has there been the slightest whisper of doubt, the slightest want of faith, in the chief God of America — unlimited belief in the future of America. The faith of Americans in their own country is religious, if not in its intensity, at any rate in its almost absolute and universal authority. It pervades the air we breathe.
The Land of Democracy has always appealed to its more enthusiastic children chiefly as a land of wonderful and more than national possibilities. Neither race nor tradition, nor the actual past, binds the American to his countrymen, but rather the future which together they are building.
When, however, Americans talk of their country as the Land of Promise, a question may well be raised as to precisely what they mean. They mean, of course, in general, that the future will have something better in store for them individually and collectively than has the past or the present; but a very superficial analysis of this meaning discloses certain ambiguities. How is this Promise to be fulfilled? Will it fulfil itself, or does it imply certain responsibilities? If so, what responsibilities?
2.Until the middle of the nineteenth-century art had been regarded as a luxury for the rich dilettante; people heard little of it, and thought less. There was a popular belief that beautiful things were expensive. There never was a more erroneous idea. The diligent polish in order to secure nice plain surfaces, or the neat fitting of parts together, is infinitely more difficult than adding a florid casting to conceal clumsy workmanship. The mere fact that a piece of work is decorated does not show that it has cost any more in time and execution than if it were plain — frequently many hours have been saved by the device of covering up defects with cheap ornament.
A craft may easily be practiced without art, and still serve its purpose; the alliance of the two is a means of giving pleasure as well as serving utility. People suppose that because a design is artistic, its technical rendering is any the less important, but they are mistaken. Frequently curious articles are palmed off on us, and designated as “Arts and Crafts” ornaments, in which neither art nor craft plays its full share. Art does not consist only in original, unusual, or unfamiliar designs; the best art is that which produces designs of grace and appropriateness, whether they are strikingly new or not.
A medieval artist was usually a craftsman as well. He was not content with furnishing designs alone, and then handing them over to men whose hands were trained to their execution. He took his own designs and carried them out. The result was a harmony of intention and execution which is often lacking when two men of differing tastes produce one object.
PTE writing practice-summarize written text paragraphs
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