Reading and Writing (fill in the blanks) is a part of the PTE test in which you are required to select and drag the right words into the blanks. The test assesses your vocabulary, grammatical skills, and the ability to understand how words fit into a context.
There are certain tips and tricks that you should know about if you want to score high in Reading and Writing module of PTE exam. These are as follows:
Developing vocabulary goes a long way to successfully comprehending the passages. These can range from literature to highly academic topics. In order to build a good vocabulary, try to read as many academic articles as possible, note down unknown words, use them, and remember them contextually. This way when you see a word you will have sufficient idea as to whether or not it is correct for a particular blank.
Understand parts of speech and grammar, in general, can help you understand the passages much better. Understanding whether a particular word is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. is paramount. Furthermore, recognizing the standard basic word order in English, that is, subject + verb + object can help you pick out the parts of the speech much more easily.
Ensure that you also have an in-depth knowledge of countable and uncountable nouns. Countable nouns need to have articles – a/an/the – in front of them and an ‘s’ at the end when in plural form. Uncountable nouns, on the other hand, do not have ‘a’ or ‘an’ (though it can have ‘the’), nor do they have a plural form. There are some exceptions, though, such as news, economics, politics, mathematics, etc. which are always written in plural form but are considered as singular nouns.
Recognize the suffixes that are used for different parts of speech. This ensures that even if you do not understand the meaning of the word, you can nevertheless identify if it’s a noun, adjective, or verb. For example: celebration (noun suffix), celebratory (adjective suffix), and celebrate (verb suffix).
Spend no more than 2 minutes on this task
In this module, spend no more than two minutes. To finish the task within two minutes, try to skim through the passage. Since the length of the passage is quite short, it is easier for you to glance through and get the basic idea about the words. Once you get an idea as to what the context of the passage is, you will be more likely to pick out the right word for the blanks.
What to do when you’re unsure of an answer? This is a non-issue. All you have to do is, firstly, understand what meaning the sentence is conveying. Secondly, look at the options and eliminate the words that do not fit in the sentence at all, and pick the one that is left. If you’re still unsure, make your best guess. There is no negative marking.
Being familiar with collocations can help tremendously in understanding the passage. Collocations are those words that generally go together, similar to a phrase. For instance, in the sentence “You have to be aware of grammatical rules to be good at this task” the word “be aware of” is an example of collocation. Another example could be – “You should do your homework daily” or “Practice to get the desired score”. This last example is also an example of a specific form of collocation, called academic collocation.
This task requires you to drag and drop the word in the blank. Make sure that you do so carefully and don’t end up making mistakes by rushing it. Once all the blanks are filled, check once again to ensure that the right words are in the right blanks. The answer can be changed any time before clicking the Next button.
All these tips and tricks should help you get your desired score in this task. It is important to understand that better performance comes through practice alone. Make sure that you practice PTE reading and writing sample questions before you attempt the full-length test.