Reading

Reading in PTE (Academic) consists of short reading passages (texts). Your comprehension of the texts is tested in various ways. You may be asked to pick one or more answer to a question prompt that seeks information on what you read. Or the statements in the text, otherwise part of a running paragraph, may be presented in a jumbled sequence, and you are expected to put them back in the correct sequence based on structural and logical flow of the original text. Or the text may be provided with gaps, and fillers/distracters provided separately for you to choose from and complete the natural Row of the original text. ‘The question forms may be different but what is being tested essentially is whether you are able to catch the flow of the idea(s) discussed, particularly the main point of the argument.

The PTE Reading section is one of the most challenging parts of the PTE exam and consists of five subsections

Question Types

  1. Reading: Fill in the blanks Drop Down
  2. Multiple-choice, choose multiple answers
  3. Re-order paragraphs
  4. Fill in the Blanks Drag and Drop
  5. Reading and writing: Fill in the blanks

Skills Assessed

  1. Understanding the writer’s viewpoint and answering the question accordingly.
  2. Identifying and retrieving factual information from the given passage.
  3. Understanding the main ideas of a passage by recognizing ways of linking ideas, sentences and paragraphs.

General Tips

  1. Read for a purpose.
  2. Read for the key point(s).
  3. Look for the clue words in the question or the passage.
  4. Try to relate unfamiliar words with the text and/or with other similar words so as to guess the meanings.
  5. In all the slides shown below, cake note both of the “Time Remaining” at the top right-hand corner and “Next” button at the bottom right-hand corner. Both are very important, one indicating the time you are left with (the items are not separately timed), and the other emphasizing the urgency to go to the next item without losing time.
  6. Also note the number of items you are left with in this section (mentioned underneath the time remaining).

Before we delve into understanding each of the modules in detail, let’s first focus on (1) Reading: Fill in the blanks Drop Down and (4) Reading fill in the blanks. These 2 sections almost have similar approach

Only difference is, in Drop Down fill in the blanks, each blank comes with 4 Fixed Options to choose from. However, in Drag and Drop fill in the blanks all possible answers are listed at the bottom, and you must pick the correct ones for each blank. In addition, Now Drop Down fill in the blanks contributes marks to reading only (from 7th Aug, 2025); however, reading fill in the blanks contributes only to reading as it used to be earlier.

Together from these 2 sections, one can expect approximately 40-42 marks to reading.

REMEMBER:

Many students attempt to solve both the fill in the blanks question types using a brute-force approach, reading the passage from start to finish, relying solely on context and filling in the blanks. While this method may seem logical, it is highly time consuming. Time management is critical in such tasks, and spending more than 2 minutes per question is not practical.

  1. Fill in the Blanks Drop Down

Tips for Fill in the Blanks Drop Down

  1. Skim the text to get the flow.
  2. Look for clue words to fill each blank (and, but, while, etc.)
  3. Eliminate ungrammatical/illogical words among the options.
  4. First fill the easier ones and then predict fillers for the rest.
  5. Never leave the question unanswered.

  6. Multiple-Choice, Choose Multiple Answers

Tips for Multiple-Choice, Choose Multiple Answers

  1. The question could pertain to the main idea, or detail, or inference, purpose, organization.
  2. Skim the text to get an overview of the ‘Main Point’.
  3. Then scan the question along with the options.
  4. Now read through the text to catch the answer.
  5. In case of difficulty, eliminate as many options as you can.
  6. Try to relate but do not worry too much about unfamiliar words.
  7. Beware! This is a question with a negative marking. Don’t select more than one option unless you are confident.

The key to find the answers is to catch the key words of the written text. Eliminate patiently the incor­rect options by simply using a yes/no format. Keep all the options that outwardly seem to be correct. No more than three options (often only two) will be correct. So, filter out options that are corrupted by use of incorrect or irrelevant words/phrases.

Tips for Maximizing Score

This question type attracts deduction of points in case a wrong answer is selected. Yet, it is very important to note that the minimum score for the question as a whole is zero. So, simple strategy to maximize score is to choose only the answer(s) you are sure about and not to neutralize the positive score(s) by earning minus point(s). Pick an answer if you are sure; skip an answer if you are not.

  1. Re-order Paragraphs

Tips for Re-order Paragraphs

  1. Skim each text to get a general idea of the topic.
  2. Look for grammatical/syntactic connectors/markers (noun-pronoun; article; and/but; later; firstly, secondly, etc.).
  3. Make pairs like DA, BC, to mark sentences that occur together.
  4. Note that all the texts are part of one big paragraph. Find the beginning of the big paragraph.
  5. Be sure to re-read all the texts after sequencing them in pairs.

Start by making pairs. Choose one text that will come after the other. Note chat if A comes after B, it need not come immediately after B. The sequence could be BA or BCA or BOA. For BCA to be correct, something in A must refer to something in C also.

Once you believe that you have found out the correct sequence, make sure to re-read all the texts in the chosen sequence and see if they make sense.

  1. Fill in the Blanks Drag and Drop

The purpose of this task is to assess your ability to analyse contextual cues to correctly complete incomplete sentences in an academic reading text. The texts are up to 300 words long and cover a variety of academic topics. Each text has up to six blanks; each blank can have up to five options. For each blank, you have to choose the option that best completes the sentence. You will read either five or six texts. The individual texts are not timed; you will have a fixed amount of time of between 27 and 30 minutes to complete the entire Reading part, depending on which form of the PTE Academic you receive.

TIPS

  1. Skim the text, skipping over the blanks, to get an idea of its general content and the main idea. You should be able to answer the question “What is the passage mainly about?” in your own words.
  2. Read the first sentence containing a blank carefully. Using vocabulary and grammatical cues from the words surrounding the blank, determine what kind of word is needed – that is, what part of speech is required (e.g., adjective, adverb, plural noun, preposition).
  3. Check the options and eliminate any that are clearly the wrong part of speech. Choose from among what remains.
  4. Look for any obvious clues to the logical order or chronology of events, such as first, second, lastly, finally, next, then, after, and so on, and eliminate any answer options that are illogical. Choose from among what remains.
  5. Some items test your knowledge of idioms and collocations. Check whether any of the options form a common expression, and if so, whether this makes sense in the given context.
  6. If you do not know the answer, and are unable to eliminate any options, guess. Never leave the question unanswered. If you leave the question unanswered, it will be marked as incorrect. By guessing, you have the possibility of answering correctly.
  7. Keep track of your time using the on-screen timer.
  1. Multiple-Choice, Choose Single Answer

Tips for Multiple-Choice, Choose Single Answer

  1. The question could pertain to the main idea, or detail, or inference, purpose, organization.
  2. Skim the text to get an overview of the ‘Main Point’.
  3. Then scan the question along with the options.
  4. Now read through the text to catch the answer.
  5. In case of difficulty, eliminate as many options as you can.
  6. Try to correlate but do not worry much about unfamiliar words.
  7. Don’t leave the question unanswered.

The key to find the answer is to catch the key words of the written text. An easy way to do this is to locate phrases that most options use. The answer will most likely lie among such options. Eliminate patiently incorrect options by simply using a yes/no format. Choose the one that you are not able to eliminate.