Common Mistakes in Flow Chart Completion

The four are: writing a full sentence where a phrase is wanted, using your own words instead of the passage's, filling the boxes out of order because you read the chart before the passage, and answering a box from general knowledge rather than from the text. All four are avoided by reading the passage first and answering only from it.

The format

Writing sentences instead of phrases

The most frequent error and the easiest to fix. A box holds three to eight words, with no subject where the given box omits it, no connector and no full stop. Candidates who write full sentences usually have the content right and lose marks purely on form.

• ✗ Then the leaves are dried in the sun by the workers.
• ✓ drying the leaves in the sun
• Check the given box for length and shape before writing anything.

Using your own words instead of the passage’s

Students trained to paraphrase in summary writing often paraphrase here too, and it is the wrong instinct. A flow chart tests locating and compressing, not rewording. Take the key words from the passage and change only the grammar.

Filling the boxes before reading the passage

Reading the chart first makes you scan the passage for words that look like they belong in boxes, rather than following the argument. It produces answers that are individually plausible and collectively out of order.

Answering from general knowledge

If you happen to know the process — how tea is made, how paper is produced — it is tempting to fill a box from memory when the passage is unclear. Every such answer is wrong by definition: the chart summarises the passage, not the world.

Two smaller ones

• Inconsistent form — starting with -ing phrases and drifting into noun phrases halfway down.
• Ignoring the box count — squeezing extra stages in, or leaving a box empty because the passage seemed to run out.

Model answer

The same box, answered badly and well

Passage extract

Once the pulp has been poured into the vat, a fine mesh screen is dipped into it and lifted out flat, so that an even layer of fibre settles on the mesh.

Given box

Box 3 (given): beating it into a pulp

Four wrong answers to box 4

A fine mesh screen is dipped into the vat and lifted out flat. — a full sentence.

Creating a uniform stratum of cellulose fibres. — paraphrased away from the passage.

Using a modern paper-making machine. — invented from general knowledge.

The mesh screen. — a noun phrase where the given box is an -ing phrase, and too short.

The right answer

lifting a layer on a mesh screen — four words, an -ing phrase matching box 3, key words taken from the passage, no connector and no full stop.

What earns and loses marks

• 🚨 Read the passage first. Almost every error in this list follows from reading the chart first.
• Copy the shape of the given box: same grammar, similar length, subject present or absent as it is there.
• Take the passage’s words. This is not a paraphrase exercise.
• Never fill a box from what you know about the world.
• Check consistency down the whole chart before you move on — one drifting box is easy to spot and easy to fix.

Mistakes to avoid

• ✗ A fine mesh screen is dipped into the vat and lifted out flat. ✓ lifting a layer on a mesh screen — a sentence where a phrase was wanted
• ✗ Creating a uniform stratum of cellulose fibres. ✓ lifting a layer on a mesh screen — paraphrased away from the passage for no gain