7 Exam-Smart Tips for Synthesis and Transformation

The Synthesis and Transformation section of English Paper 2 consists of 5 questions, each worth 2 marks. This section tests your sentence construction skills using various grammar devices like connectors, conditionals, word formation, etc.

Synthesis and Transformation requires you to combine two given sentences and/or change a given sentence without losing its original meaning. If you understand what the original text is saying, it will be easy to put it in your own words. However, for each Synthesis and Transformation question, there’s a different word or phrase that you must include in your answer. With these constraints, it becomes more difficult.

Many students have trouble with Synthesis and Transformation and you should not be discouraged if you are not scoring well in this segment. Synthesis and Transformation is reconstructing sentences. It may not be as difficult as you think.

Before you carry on reading… you might want to download a pdf copy of this article for your child’s revision …

All the MUST KNOW exam-smart tips for Synthesis and Transformation is compiled in the cheat sheet!

• Common Mistakes
• What to look out for
• Sentence Connectors
• Order of Clauses

Click here to Download

Here are 7 exam-smart tips to help you improve your Synthesis and Transformation component.

1. Include ALL Information Available

In Synthesis and Transformation, you will need to add, change and rearrange words to form a new sentence that has the same meaning as the original sentence(s). To keep the original meaning, your answer must contain all the information from the original text. Sometimes, students misunderstand the original sentence(s) and leave out important information in their answer.

First, understand what the original text is saying. Is it pointing out a contrast? Is it telling us why something happened? (Cause and Effect.) Is it simply telling us a bunch of ideas that can be strung together? (Addition.) When you understand the original text clearly, you will know what information you must include.

Let’s take a look at an example. Understand what the original text is saying and then craft your own sentence with the given words.

68. My sister reported the matter to the police. My brother did not report it.

It was not ___________________________________________________________________.

Taken from River Valley Primary School P6 English Prelim Exam 2019

The original text is saying that my sister reported the matter to the police, while my brother did not. Thus, the original text is showing the difference or contrast between the two siblings’ behaviours. Your answer needs to contain information about both of their behaviours.

The sentence has to start with ‘It was not’ – a negative. It was not the brother who reported the matter, so we know that ‘my brother’ will need to follow, and a relative pronoun ‘who’ is needed to connect the phrase (‘report the matter to the police’) to the noun.

It was not my brother who reported the matter to the police.

Now, this is where your understanding of the original text comes in. Your answer needs to have the same meaning as the original text. The above answer is incomplete because it doesn’t say the sister did report the matter to the police. Students make the common mistake of thinking delivering part of the message is enough. However, your answer must show the contrast between the brother’s and sister’s actions. Hence, we need a connector that indicates contrast to add the information about the sister to the sentence.

Answer: It was not my brother, but my sister who reported the matter to the police.

Now, the answer contains all the necessary information about both the brother and the sister while also showing the contrast between them.

2. Try Not to Deviate from the Original Text as Much as Possible.

In Synthesis and Transformation, you need to change the original sentence without losing its meaning. That is why you should use most of the words from the original sentence in your answer.

For example, it is crucial that you do not change the capitalisation of names, titles and subjects (for example, Chinese and Physics). These words should always start with a capital letter no matter their position in the sentence.

Adjectives, also known as describing words, should not be changed or removed. Even if you know a synonym, you must stick with the original word. Synthesis and Transformation is not testing how wide your vocabulary is. Besides, using the original adjective will ensure that your answer retains its meaning.

Also, you may change the form of the verb, but do not change the root word. For example, if the word in the original text is ‘angry’ and you need to change it to its noun form, you change the word to ‘anger’, not another word that means ‘anger’ (like ‘rage’ or ‘fury’).

In conclusion, stick to the vocabulary from the original sentence/s and avoid using synonyms if possible.

3. Stick to the Original Tenses … (Except for Reported Speech!)

You must use the original tenses in your answer in order to keep the meaning of the original text. As you read the given sentence(s), take note of the tenses that were used. You may want to underline the words that indicate the tenses and write ‘past’, ‘present’ or ‘future’ above them to keep track.

               (Present)                          (Present)

69. As John is afraid of snakes, he refuses to go into the woods.

Out of his ___________________________________________________________________.

Taken from Raffles Girls’ Primary School P6 English Prelim Exam 2019

From the words ‘is’ and ‘refuses’, we know that the present tense should be used in the answer.

Answer: Out of his fear of snakes, John refuses to go into the woods.

You will only need to change the tenses when you are transforming Direct Speech (dialogue) to Reported Speech. If the present tense is used in dialogue, the past tense needs to be used in Reported Speech. Similarly, if the past tense is used in the dialogue, past perfect tense has to be used in the Reported Speech.

    (Past tense)

70. “Did you freeze this ice pack last night?” Mrs Chen asked her son.

Mrs Chen asked her son ________________________________________________________________.

Taken from Ai Tong School P6 English Prelim Exam 2019

                                                       (Past perfect tense)

Answer: Mrs Chen asked her son if he had frozen that ice pack the previous night.

4. Strengthen Your Grammar Foundation

Many students think they need to study grammar rules for the MCQ section of Paper 2 only. That should not be your mindset. Grammar rules apply to every sentence you construct, and the whole point of Synthesis and Transformation is to test your ability to form grammatically correct sentences. Having a strong grammar foundation will make it easier for you to construct accurate sentences.

You may feel daunted by this task as there are so many grammar rules and a lot are difficult to understand. Generally, in every sentence, the tenses should be consistent, and verbs should match their plural or singular noun (subject-verb agreement). Simply taking note of these 2 rules in every sentence you construct will help save you from a lot of mistakes.

However, Synthesis and Transformation is not straight-forward as the grammar MCQ segment since multiple grammar rules may be tested in each question.

For example, questions that test you on Active Voice/Passive Voice sentences will require you to know past participle rules, subject-verb agreement rules and of course the tenses used. You will need to know how to transform verbs of different tenses into their past participle forms while taking note of whether its subject is plural or singular. Examples:

• I write these letters. (Active) à These letters are written by me. (Passive)
• I wrote this letter. (Active) à This letter was written by me. (Passive)
• I had written this letter. (Active) à This letter had been written by me. (Passive)

Synthesis and Transformation will not make it easy for you to nab the 2 marks. Tough questions will not simply give you connectors like ‘and’ and ‘but’, which we all know how to use. Instead, you get tricky words and phrases (like ‘despite’, ‘whom’, ‘not only… but also…’) that do not immediately tell you which part of the original text needs to be changed and how to change it.

With a solid foundation of grammar rules, we will be well equipped to change word forms (e.g., transform a verb to its noun form), form conditional sentences, use relative pronouns, transform direct speech to reported speech, transform a sentence with an active voice to passive voice and form sentences with participle clauses.

5. Master Common Sentence Connectors

Most of us are very familiar with common sentence connectors, such as conjunctions and relative pronouns, and thus overlook their importance. Some common conjunctions are FANBOYS – ‘for’, ‘and’, ‘nor’, ‘but’, ‘or’, ‘yet’, and ‘so’. Examples of relative pronouns include ‘that’, ‘where’, ‘who’, and ‘which’. Questions testing your ability to use common connectors are easy, so make sure you get them all correct.

Besides FANBOYS, learn the conjunctions that commonly appear in Synthesis and Transformation questions and what kind of sentences they are used in. For example, ‘owing to’ and ‘due to’ are used to express cause and effect. ‘Although’ and ‘apart from’ are used to show contrast. ‘If’ and ‘unless’ are used in conditionals. What other common connectors can you think of?

Relative pronouns (‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘whose’, ‘which’, ‘that’) may also be used to join two sentences that describe a same person or thing. As this is a commonly tested grammar device, your child should be proficient in using relative pronouns to join sentences together.

Some questions may not provide the connector for you, so you will be forced to think of a suitable one to combine the two original sentences. Having a list of common connectors in your head will be a huge help, so do not forget your FANBOYS and relative pronouns.

6. Get the Order of the Clauses Correct

When you are describing a situation, whatever happens first should come first, right? Well, the order of clauses in a sentence also depends on the connector you use.

If you have a solid knowledge in conjunctions, you should be able to identify what the provided connector is supposed to indicate. For e.g., the connector ‘due to’ indicates a cause/reason and it is normally put in front of the clause that expresses the cause. The connector ‘if’ indicates a condition and it is normally put in front of the clause that expresses the condition.

Let’s look at a question where you need to form a sentence with the connector ‘due to’. Students often have trouble with questions in which they are required to form cause and effect sentences because they do not understand how to use the given word(s) and mess up the order of clauses.

             (Cause)                                                                 (Effect)

69. Grandma Mae was anxious about the operation. She could not sleep.

Due to her _________________________________________________________________.

Taken from Rosyth School P6 English Prelim Exam 2019

Note down which clause is the cause and which is the effect. Now you know which clause should come after ‘due to’.

Answer: Due to her anxiety about the operation, Grandma Mae could not sleep.

Here is an example that requires you to form a conditional sentence, another type of sentence that students often get confused over.

           (Result) (‘Will’ – future tense)                               (Condition)

68. Ali will go for basketball training this afternoon unless it rains.

If __________________________________________________________________________.

Taken from Raffles Girls’ Primary School P6 English Prelim Exam 2019

Identify the condition and the result in the original text, and now you know which clause comes after ‘if’, which is the conjunction that indicates the condition.

Answer: If it does not rain, Ali will go for basketball training this afternoon.

OR If it rains, Ali will not go for basketball training this afternoon.

The reason there are 2 possible answers is because the original text is itself a conditional, which means Ali has yet to take an action. There are still 2 possible actions he can take, which is either go for basketball training or NOT go for basketball training. Understand what the original text is saying, so you can accurately transform it.

The word or phrase that the question gives you determines what you need to change, which includes the order of the clauses. By now you should see how important it is to understand fundamental grammar rules. They help you understand what the word or phrase indicates so you can accurately transform sentences and reorder clauses.

7. Check Answers by Reading Aloud

Always remember to check your answers after you are done. It may be wise give your brain a break and check the other sections of the exam paper before coming back to the Synthesis and Transformation segment.

The most important things you will need to check your answers for are whether

• the tenses match the original text (unless you changed direct speech to reported speech),
• the subject-verb agreement is correct
• the punctuation is correct
• the meaning of your sentence matches the original text, and
• no information is left out

Here’s a tip on checking answers – read them aloud! Of course, do not read loudly during an exam. You can just whisper the words out under your breath.

Reading aloud forces your eyes to slow down to match the pace of your voice. When you slow down, you are more likely to catch mistakes or awkward-sounding sentences. Also, hearing your words will get your brain to process the information in a different way and help you pick out errors that your eyes might have skipped over.

Final Words

Synthesis and Transformation forces us to express information with the constraints of certain words and in a certain order.

Although it is difficult, Synthesis and Transformation skills are essential. It helps us form sentences that are clear-cut and easily understood by everyone, so that when we pass on information, we can avoid confusing others or miss out important details. It also provides us with the mental tools to craft a variety of sentences, hence improving the flow or readability of our writing.

With enough practice, your Synthesis and Transformation skills will carry forward to Comprehension (Open-Ended), Situational Writing, and even Composition Writing.  Crafting a myriad of sentences will no longer be a problem for you!

If you need help with this segment, you might want to consider joining our OnlineSynthesis and Transformation Crash Course here. (Click to find out more) >>> Synthesis and Transformation Crash Course

Like what you read? Then you might want to download a pdf copy of this article for your child’s revision …

All the MUST KNOW exam-smart tips for Synthesis and Transformation is compiled in the cheat sheet!

• Common Mistakes
• What to look out for
• Sentence Connectors
• Order of Clauses

Click here to Download