Summarize the selection from Peter Atkins' Creation Revisited ("Why Things Change," pages 12-16) in no more than 250 words (one single spaced page).
The audience for a summary would be those who have not read the original; perhaps they'll read the summary to decide if they need to consult the original (that's the purpose of a scholarly abstract). For this reason, the summary must make sense to someone who has not read the original text.
Although you will all summarize the same text, each summary will be slightly different; the act of summarizing is also an act of interpretation. You will need to decide which points to include and which to exclude for reasons of space. Whatever you decide, the summary must be accurate and as complete as possible given the word limitation.