Dear Sophia,

Thank you for your comment. Congratulations for being offered an interview of the program at ACU! I was interviewed at ACU only, though I received an offer to be interviewed at Monash’s Ed&Dev program as well, but declined as I have accepted the ACU offer.

The writing task required me to read a short journal article (with the abstract removed) and write a new abstract within 30–40 minutes. I’m not actually sure how you go on about doing it via Skype, though I’d imagine they’re not too fussed on the time limit (unless you take more than an hour, of course). I guess the trick to preparing for it is reading some journal articles and get a feel on how abstracts are written in APA style. Summarize the study briefly, taking the notable information from each section into a condensed paragraph. At the end, imagine yourself reading the article for the first time — do the abstract make sense? This is probably a rough but useful checklist:

1. What is the background of the study? Any supporting theories?
2. What are the aims of the study?
3. What are the main findings?
4. What are the implications of the study?
5. What are the limitations and avenues for future research?

All the best for the interview. Good luck!

Kind regards,
Yogi