In reading comprehension, what does the term "summary" refer to?

The term "summary" refers to a concise statement that captures the main points or ideas of a passage. In the context of reading comprehension, summarizing involves distilling the essential information from a text into a brief format, allowing the reader to grasp the overall themes, arguments, or events without extraneous details. The ability to summarize effectively is crucial in understanding the material, as it helps retain key concepts and facilitates further discussion or analysis of the text. This skill is particularly useful in educational settings, where synthesizing information from various sources is often necessary.

In contrast, a detailed analysis of characters or a lengthy description would involve more elaborate exploration and explanation, while an isolated opinion does not encapsulate the content of the entire text but rather reflects an individual perspective.