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In PTE Academic Reading Module’s Fill in the Blanks task, you will be given a text with some missing words. You will also be given a list of words below that can be used to fill the gaps in the text. Since there are more words than the number of slots, aspirants don’t have to use all the words provided.
The only skill assessed in this task is Reading.
An aspirant can expect to encounter 4-5 Reading Fill in the Blanks questions.
In this blog-post, we will share tips to solve Reading Rill in the Blanks questions successfully. But before that, let us first understand the scoring of the task, and the process of solving it.
PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks Scoring
This task tests your skills to fill the given blanks by using grammar knowledge and contextual clues. If you fill all the blanks correctly, you will receive the maximum PTE score points. But if only one or more blanks are correctly filled, you will be entitled to partial credit scoring. The good news is that there is no negative marking in this task.
How to Drag the Text into the Right Blanks?
To select a word from the options provided, left-click on it, hold the left mouse button down, and then drag the word to the blank you intend to place it in. If you make a mistake, you can pull the word back to the blue box of options.
Tips to Solve PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks
1. Focus On Grammar
After you have skimmed the given passage, rely on your sense of grammar. Try to predict what word should fill a blank, according to the rules of Grammar. Is it an adjective? Or a Verb? Or a Noun?
At times, you can also predict the response, based on your knowledge of tense and collocation of words. In some cases, you may not understand a few words in the passage. So, you can depend on subject-verb-object predicates, and other grammar rules to ace the task. Or, you could find the missing part of speech.
It also pays to the variations of the verb forms, when used with single and multiple nouns. Further, the knowledge of proper usage of articles ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’ before countable and uncountable nouns is essential.
2. Build A Solid Vocabulary
When solving Reading Fill in the Blanks, you may encounter passages from a wide range of topics—from academic to literature and more. So you can expand your reading list to include a variety of subjects. This will improve your familiarity with difficult words and their usage.
3. Know more collocations
Collocations are words that are frequently mentioned together in widespread use. These words go along like phrases. There are two types of collocations: Academic and grammatical.
For instance: careful thought, directly connected, rural society, etc. Go through the exhaustive list of collocations released by Pearson, read them frequently. Doing this will surely help you improve your performance in Reading Fill in the Blanks.
4. Elimination Strategy
When you are unsure about an answer, you can try the elimination strategy to see which word is the right fit for the sentence or even the paragraph.
5. Focus on the meaning of the words and the context of the paragraph
This is the common feedback we have received from the PTE Academic Exam aspirants. When solving Reading Fill in the Blanks questions, many get confused between two or more words with similar meanings. To tackle such situations, focus on the exact meaning of the two words, and also the context of the sentence and the paragraph. For instance: ‘predict’ and ‘foresee’ may look like two words with similar meanings, but they fit entirely different contexts. You can also depend on Grammar for hints to figure out which word is going to be more appropriate as an answer.
If you are looking for tools for free PTE Reading practice, you can download the PTE Tutorials Mobile App, which is available for download for free on both Android and iOS platforms. The app gives you tons for free questions to practice from your mobile device. You can also go for online PTE Reading practice with sample questions.
