Crack PTE Academic in style! Part 2 — Reading
“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” ― Walt Disney
In part 1 of this series, we looked at the Speaking section in detail, if you want to check that it’s here.
In this part, I will be sharing various tips and strategies to conquer the Reading section of the PTE-Academic Exam.
When I wrote the exam in Mar 2022, I got 90 in Reading section in two variants of PTE-Academic (Regular and UKVI), for me they meant for different purpose.
Useful pointers and tips for Reading
There are 5 question types in Reading but as mentioned in the first blog that each section might also derive it’s score from other sections. Reading section also derives a lot of its scoring from other sections.
Basically the tasks that contribute to Reading section in order of their contribution are listed below:
a. Read Aloud — From Speaking section and contributing roughly 27%-30% to the Reading section.
Strategy:
✤ Strategies on tackling this task can be found here.
b. Reading and Writing Fill in the Blanks is a task from Reading section and it contributes 23%-25%. Now this is a important task for reading section and it needs good amount of practice if you are not a avid reader of diverse texts.
Strategy:
✤ I think the key here is to start building a list of words you are usually seen or heard together like lethal combination or collateral damage. For this task reading diverse texts can help, honestly this takes time and there is no shortcut to it or at least I am not aware of one.
c. Highlight incorrect word — Another task from Listening section which contributes somewhere around 10% to your reading score.
Strategy:
✤ Keep your eyes on the screen, and your hand moving along the paragraph while listening to the audio and you need to click on the wrong word at same time as hear it. Making note of incorrect words can also help but this risks you loosing tracks of the passage itself.
✤ Before the audio starts, you can have a quick cursory look at the para and create a mental map, at least that helped me to spot incorrect words while I hear them.
d. Reading reorder paragraphs — it contributes to somewhere 7%–10% to the reading scores. This is another important task and most people, even the pro readers find it tough. Though there are semantic rules a language follows but still author’s choice of topic introduction sentence, body and conclusion sometimes can be abstruse (at least I find it so, though it is easy to connect the dots once you know the correct sequence of sentences)
Strategy:
✤ Allocate biggest chunk of your review time after mock tests and try to reason why a particular sequence does not make sense. This can be the key to unlocking some useful insights. Obviously there are certain rules like “A sentence with subject pronoun can only follow the one where the subject is first introduced and not otherwise”
✤ Since you are awarded points based on pairs fo sentences, sometimes working through pairs, helps you unlock other sequences easily.
e. Summarise Written Text This task is from writing section and it contributes around 3%–4% to your reading score.
Strategy:
✤ You can create a template and stick to it or you can check a sample template from Github in useful resources section.
f. MCQ multiple answers — This task contributes around 1%-2% to your reading score. Unless you are targeting a 79+ or a 90 this is not an important task.
Strategy:
✤ Though this task is important for other reason, this task carries a negative scoring for wrongly answered options, so the best bet is not to waste time over options you are not very sure and only mark options for which you are completely sure.
g. MCQ Single answers — This task contributes around 1%-2% to your reading score. Again not a important task to fret over and waste time. I didn’t waste much time over this and saved time for later tasks. One of them is the king of the tasks “Write from diction” and it usually appears towards the end.
Strategy:
✤ Basically I found two approaches to tackle this task, you can test which one works better for you.
=> If you are a speed reader, it is better to read the para and check the questions later. At this point either you already know the answer or you need to reference back.
=> If you are not a speed reader, then the strategy I have seen works best with most people is to first read the question, understand what is being asked and then reference back to para to search (though there are caveats here as well — time is of essence and this task is not very important in terms of score)
✤ In MCQs type questions, elimination techniques works best for arriving at correct option in most occasions.
h. Highlight correct summary — Now this is task from your Listening section carrying around 1%-2% of reading scores.
Strategy:
✤ When you read the sentence and it seems like a fact statement, then most often than not, it is not the correct response.
✤ Anything you can find in the paragraph as-is, is also not the correct option at most times.
✤ A sentence which looks like the gist of the entire paragraph is usually the correct option.
Frequently asked questions
Q: I get really good scores in other sections but reading scores are not improving?
A: As reading scores derives a lot of weight from Read aloud task from Speaking section and Highlight incorrect word from Listening section, focussing on these two tasks can improve scores in Reading section dramatically.
If this blogs helps you, I will appreciate if you can pass this information along so that someone else can benefit. If you have a specific question, you can comment and I will try my best to answer that.
You can read my other blogs here or connect with me on LinkedIn.
Useful resources
- Sample templates
- Official PTE preparation test
- My PTE Speaking, Listening and Writing blogs
Disclaimer: Above information is based on my personal experiences so please use discretion to see if the above tips works for you.
