Are you preparing for the PTE test and is the reading section is frightening you? You are at the right spot. Go through this article for some proven strategies to boost your PTE Reading score.
The reading section is one of the scoring parts of the PTE test in which the candidate needs to read short or long passages and answer the questions related to that. The person who loves reading may enjoy this section but the one who feels bored while reading may find this section difficult. Because of the lengthy passages and the topics, they are related to.
Before going to how to solve those with expert strategies, here is a quick overview of the PTE Reading Section.
[Read more: 7 Practical Tips to Score 80+ in PTE Writing]
What is the Format for the PTE Reading Section?
PTE Reading section is the second section in the test with approximately 30-40 minutes duration. This section consists of five tasks.
1. Multiple Choice – Choose a single answer
2. Multiple Choice – Choose multiple answers
3. Re-order Paragraphs
4. Fill in the blanks
5. Fill in the blanks – Reading & Writing
With an idea of exam pattern, let us see how to face it with our expert strategies.
Tips to boost PTE Reading score:
1. Feel it as a Puzzle:
Considering the Re-order paragraphs task. This particular question type will consume more time to answer. So to answer those quickly find the logical chain in the given parts. Once you get the logic, then that is it, you get your order. How to find the clue? Every author leaves a clue in the paragraph to get that linked to another.
[Read more: 7 Effective Tips to Improve Your PTE Speaking Score]
A quick tip here is to have an eagle eye on the nouns and pronouns. If the first part of the passage has the noun mentioned with its name, next it can be used with the pronoun. Therefore, you can keep this in mind to find the first clue. Consider it as a puzzle you solve during childhood and practice picking up clues. Try to finish these questions in 3-4 minutes. Plus, as you need to drag and drop in this section, make sure you are dropping in the right order.
2. Focus on Keywords
This one point, which can change the dimensions of your answering pace in the reading section of the PTE exam, is an important strategy to boost your score. As the reading section is mostly on passages, it needs a lot of focus to identify that particular word while answering the question. Therefore, it is better to focus on keywords while reading and highlight them.
Keywords can be a noun, a pronoun, or a questioning word, or anything. Pick your keyword and mark it to save time. This strategy can also be used to solve multiple-choice questions.
3. Summarize the passage
It is not necessary to understand each word in the passage. But after identifying the keywords, it is better to at least understand the outline of the given passage. Follow the clue chain and understand the logic behind them. This way it can be easy to answer the main idea or theme of the passage questions.
Understanding summary questions are sometimes confusing. Pick your key details and understand the tone used by the author, which can give your clarity in choosing the right answer.
4. Predict the answer
While answering the fill-in-the-blank or multiple-choice, be brave enough to guess the answer right away. No one can answer the questions directly. But after reading the passage completely, based on the vocabulary and the grammar used by the author, find the answer that suits aptly with the passage.
5. Always Double-check
The most common mistake by the PTE test takers is they do not double-check. PTE test does not allow going back to any question. So particularly while answering both the filling in the blanks tasks, make sure you answer all the questions correctly. Because fill in the blanks section is completing a passage. So, before clicking on next, read the passage and make sure it is giving the same sense of what you are thinking of.
These are the five proven strategies to improve your PTE Reading score. For any personalized training, you can connect with our expert PTE Trainers.