O-Level Summary Practice 3: Food Delivery
Practices 1 and 2 gave you 120 words so that you could concentrate on finding the points. This one is set at the length the exam actually asks for: about 80 words, not counting the introductory words you are given. Compressing what you found is the part Section C is really testing, so do not skip it.
Text 4 in the real paper is non-narrative, like the passage below.
The passage
Ten years ago, ordering food to your door in Singapore meant a phone call to a pizza chain. Today four large apps cover almost every estate, and a hawker stall in Toa Payoh can sell to a flat in Pasir Ris. The change happened faster than anyone planned.
Three things drove it. The first was convenience: an app removed every step that used to make ordering a chore, from finding the number to explaining the address. The second was the pandemic. When dining in was barred, restaurants that had resisted delivery joined within weeks, because the alternative was closing. The third was money, spent deliberately. The platforms competed by discounting heavily, often below cost, and customers learned to expect a meal cheaper than the same dish eaten in the shop.
Recruiting riders was easy. The work required no qualifications and no interview, and a rider could log on and off around lessons, a second job or a young family. For many, that flexibility mattered more than the rate.
The costs, though, are not shared evenly. Restaurants pay a commission that can reach a third of the order, which on a hawker stall's margins is the difference between a good month and a bad one. Some raise their app prices; others quietly reduce the portion. Riders are treated as self-employed, so insurance, medical bills and a broken motorcycle are theirs to cover, and the hourly figure advertised looks rather different once the waiting between jobs is counted in.
The platforms answer that none of this is hidden. Commission rates are published, riders are told before they sign that they are contractors, and nobody is compelled to use an app at all. A stall that finds the terms unattractive can keep serving the queue at its counter, as most still do. There is force in the argument. It is also true that a stall which stays off the apps now competes with one that is open to the whole island, and that a choice made under that pressure is not quite a free one.
There are costs nobody is billed for. Every order arrives in a bag, inside a box, sealed with a sticker, and the waste from that packaging has climbed steeply. Riders idling outside condominiums add to the congestion and noise of the estates they serve. And the convenience itself has a quieter effect: the coffee shop downstairs, which depended on the lunchtime crowd that now eats upstairs, sees fewer of them each year.
Regulators have begun to move, though slowly and in pieces. Riders won the right to a formal work-injury scheme, and platforms must now state the full cost of an order before it is confirmed rather than after. Neither measure touches the commission, which is the number the restaurants care about most. What the last decade has shown is that a convenience can spread across a city in a few years, and that working out who is paying for it takes considerably longer.
The task
Summarise why food delivery has grown so quickly in Singapore and the costs this has created.
Write about 80 words, not counting the words you are given to begin with. Use your own words as far as possible.
Food delivery has grown quickly because ...
✍️ Your turn
Use ONLY the passage above. Continue from the given opening: 'Food delivery has grown quickly because ...'. Write one paragraph of about 80 words on why food delivery has grown so quickly AND the costs this has created. Put everything in your own words as far as possible. Do not count the given opening words.
Reveal the content points
Why it grew
- Apps removed the effort from ordering.
- The pandemic forced restaurants that had refused delivery to join.
- Platforms discounted below cost, so customers came to expect cheap meals.
- Riders were easy to recruit: no qualifications needed.
- The hours suited people fitting work around study, another job or children.
What it costs
- Restaurants lose up to a third of an order in commission.
- They respond by raising prices or shrinking portions.
- Riders are self-employed, so insurance, medical costs and repairs are theirs.
- Their real earnings drop once waiting time is counted.
- Packaging waste has risen steeply.
- Riders waiting outside blocks add congestion and noise.
- Nearby coffee shops lose the lunchtime trade.
Twelve points will not fit in 80 words, and you are not expected to fit them. Choose across both halves of the question rather than emptying one paragraph of the passage.
Reveal an 80-word model
Food delivery has grown quickly because apps made ordering effortless and lockdowns forced restaurants online, while heavy discounts trained customers to expect cheap meals. Riders were easy to recruit, since the work needed no qualifications and allowed flexible hours. The costs fall unevenly. Restaurants surrender up to a third of each order in commission, so many raise prices or cut portions. Riders cover their own insurance and repairs, and earn less once waiting time is counted. Packaging waste has risen sharply, and neighbourhoods absorb the congestion.
Exactly 80 words after the opening. Notice what it does:
- it groups points rather than listing them, so "no qualifications and allowed flexible hours" carries two points in six words
- it uses own words throughout: effortless for the app paragraph, surrender for the commission, trained customers to expect for the discounting
- it gives roughly half its words to each half of the question
- it drops the coffee shop and the flexible-hours detail, because 80 words will not hold everything
What to leave out
- The opening paragraph. The pizza chain, Toa Payoh and Pasir Ris are scene-setting. Nothing there answers either half of the question.
- "faster than anyone planned" and similar comment. It is the writer's view, not a reason.
- Your own opinion. Whether delivery is good for Singapore is not asked.
- Examples used to illustrate a point you have already made. If you have said restaurants lose a large share in commission, "the difference between a good month and a bad one" adds nothing but words.
- The platforms' defence, and the regulators. Both paragraphs are about who is to blame and what is being done. The question asks why delivery grew and what it costs, so neither belongs, however interesting. A long passage will always carry material outside the question: deciding what is outside it is half the task.
- Anything from the passage quoted at length. Style carries 7 marks in this paper, and copied wording is the fastest way to lose them.
How the marks work
The syllabus publishes the Summary Style band descriptors, which are worth 7 marks, and they reward two things: sustained use of your own words and structures, and ideas that are well organised and convey the meaning clearly. Points copied from the passage can still earn content credit, but they cannot earn style credit.
So a summary that finds every point and lifts the wording scores badly, and a summary that finds fewer points and expresses them cleanly in its own words can score better. Reword first, then cut.
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