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In this blog post, we’ll talk about the PTE Reading Section. The questions in the PTE Reading Test contain academic texts about different topics. Don’t worry, you don’t need to have any previous knowledge about the topics, you’ll have all the information you need in the texts.
Collocations on the PTE Reading Section
One of the most important things to do well on the PTE Reading is to study collocations. Collocations are two or more words that go together in English, for no apparent reason. They just sound right to native speakers. One example of this is saying “make a mistake” instead of “do a mistake”.
Types of questions in the PTE Reading
There are 5 types of questions in the PTE Reading Section. Fill in the Blanks (Reading and Writing); Multiple Choice Choose Multiple Answers; Re-order Paragraph; Fill in the Blanks (Reading); Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer. Only three of them are important for your Overall Score.
Three most important Reading Questions
The most important question in the PTE Reading Test is Fill in the Blanks Reading and Writing, it gives you 25-30 points. After that, we have Fill in the Blanks Reading and finally, Re-order Paragraph. Together, these 3 questions make up a total of 40-50 points of your Reading score.
Fill in the Blanks Reading and Writing
In this question, you will get points for Reading and Writing. You have to answer from 5 to 6 questions, each question is one text about an academic topic. There will be 4 to 5 blanks in each of them. You’ll also be given 4 options of answers for each blank, only one of them will be the correct one.
Tips for FIB Reading and Writing
The main strategy is reading the options first and then the sentence you have to complete. Most times, this will be enough for you to get the correct answer, but you can also try reading the sentence before and if that doesn’t work, the sentence after. Be sure to study collocations for this question!
Fill in the Blanks Reading
This question is also known as “drag and drop”. There’ll be from 4 to 5 questions and 3 to 4 blanks in each of them. You’ll be given a short text (40-80 words) with blanks and a pool of words below, which you will have to drag and drop in the correct spaces.
Tips for FIB Reading
The technique for this question is similar to FIB Reading and Writing, and for both questions, the important thing is to learn how to study for them. Every time you make a mistake, be sure to analyze why your answer was wrong and then correct your own logic. Study vocabulary and grammar!
Re-order paragraph
In this question, you will see a text on the screen. However, the paragraphs are out of order and you have to order them correctly. There will be from 2 to 3 questions and 3 to 4 points in each question. The points are given for correct pairs and not necessarily for the position of the paragraphs.
Tips for Re-order paragraph
The goal here is to get as many correct pairs as possible. This means that if you put the first paragraph and the second paragraph together you get a point, no matter if you put them at the beginning or the end. For that, check for clues pointing out if the information was mentioned before or not.
Focus on the most important questions
Don’t waste your time on the other two questions in the PTE Reading Section. They will not give you relevant points. Instead, focus on learning the vocabulary and techniques for the three questions discussed in this article, they will get you to your desired score.
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