Reading is considered one of the toughest sections among all the PTE Sections and the items in PTE reading sections contribute high marks in overall PTE score.

Our monthly prediction file provides a collection of PTE’s most important questions. Before moving forward, let’s have a quick idea about what is a Prediction File?

Our Prediction file is a collection of real exam questions for the PTE Exam that may appear in future exams also. It is developed on continuous checking of the frequency of any question’s repetition in 40 PTE Centres in 12 countries. We bring a  new prediction file every month and our students get an overall 60% of common questions from this file. 

This July our prediction file has a more than 60% of hit rate for the PTE exam. Let’s check the most important questions from the PTE Reading section that are predicted to appear in the PTE exam in the month of July.

In the Reading section, there are 5 types of questions,

⇒Fill in the Blanks Reading & Writing (Drop-Down)

⇒Fill in the Blanks Reading (Drag & Drop)

⇒Reorder Paragraph

⇒Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer (MCQ Single)

⇒Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers (MCQ Multiple)

In Reading and Writing Fill in the blanks, you get a paragraph and in the blanks, there is a drop-and-down menu. You click on that drop and-down menu and there are 4 options. You need to select the answer from there. So, The (R+W) FIB is all about drag and drop. You will get 5-6 tasks and that will get you 25-36 marks. You will get 2 – 2.30 minutes for each of these tasks.

Scoring System: 

This item follows partial scoring. You can score for each correct answer and get 0 for each incorrect answer. 

Importance of (R+W) FIB:

Reading & Writing FIB is one of the most important items of PTE which contributes to both reading and writing sections both. This item gets you 23 % marks in Reading and 20% marks in Writing. So, there is no scope to avoid this item.

Strategies and Techniques:

(R+W) FIB is dependent on Vocabulary. Vocabulary is very important for this item. Collocation is most important for (R+W) FIB. Vocabulary is something that you need to practice again & again. Collocation can be improved by improving vocabulary,

Reading FIB is dependent on Grammar. Grammars are general rules. If you know the rule, you can answer the questions easily. You need to follow the basic subject structure and some grammatical rules to do well in this task.

Basic Sentence Construction:

Sub+Verb+Obj = Meaningful

• Subject = The doer of the action (someone & something)

• Verb= Action

• Object = Receiver of the action (Someone or something)

(Note: You can have a sentence without an object. You can have a sentence without a subject. But a sentence will never make sense without a verb. A sentence without a verb is called a Phrase.)

Subject-Verb Agreement: This is the single most important grammar for Reading FIB.

• Subject = Singular/ Plural

Main verb = Plural/ Singular

• Subject = Singular/ Plural

Helping verb(am/is/are/was/were/…) = Singular/ Plural

(Note: Verb depends on the subject. ‘And’ compounds the subjects and make it plural)

There are some exceptions to the subject. 

If there is ‘No/Every / Some / Any’ in any sentence, they are treated as singular.

Parts of Speech: 

We know that there are 8 parts of speeches. But there is a  difference between the uses of parts of speech in America and British. In the American language, there are 9 parts of speech as they count Articles (A/An/The) as a part of speech. On the other hand, in British, they follow the regular 8 parts of speech in the sentence structure.

Exam Tips:

• To – verb- Base form

• Did- Verb – Base form

• Modal verbs- Verb- Base form

• Be – verb- Present continuous +past

• Been – verb- Present continuous +past participle

• Is/Are – Verb – Present continuous +past participle

• Has/ Have – Past participle

• By- before past participle and after a noun- Passive sentence

Top 5 FIB (Drop-Down) from the July prediction file,

1. Estée Lauder

Leonard Lauder, chief executive of the company his mother founded, says she always thought she “was growing a nice little business.” And that it is. A little business that ………(1)……… 45% of the cosmetics market in U.S.department stores. A little business that sells in 118 countries and last year grew to be $3.6 billion big in sales. The Lauder family’s shares are worth more than $6 billion. But early on, there wasn’t a burgeoning business, there weren’t houses in New York, Palm Beach, Fla., or the south of France. It is said that at one point there was one person to answer the telephones who ………(2)……… her voice to become the shipping or billing department as needed. You more or less know the Estée Lauder story because it’s a chapter from the book of American business folklore. In short, Josephine Esther Mentzer, daughter of immigrants, lived above her father’s hardware store in Corona, a section of Queens in New York City. She started her ………(3)……… by selling skin creams concocted by her uncle, a chemist, in beauty shops, beach clubs and resorts. No doubt the portions were good — Estée Lauder was a quality fanatic — but the saleslady was better. Much better. And she simply outworked everyone else in the cosmetics industry. She ………(4)……… the bosses of New York City department stores until she got some counter space at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1948. And once in that space, she utilized a personal selling approach that proved as ………(5)……… as the promise of her skin ………(6)……… and perfumes..
Answer:
1. controls 2. changed 3. enterprise 4. stalked 5. potent 6. regimens

2. How fish travel

Small lakes with a surface area of less than 100 square meters represent the majority of global freshwater. ecosystems. Many of these lakes ………(1)……… in remote, often mountainous areas with no inflow and outflow. Yet in most of these lakes, there are fish. So ………(2)……… do fish reach lakes and ponds that are not connected to other bodies of water? This question ………(3)……… addressed by some of the leading natural scientists of the 19th century such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Lyell, who all came to the same conclusion—water birds must be ………(4)……… fish dispersal. And they had a plausible explanation for this: fish eggs of some species are sticky and can survive for some time out of water. The theory is thus that the fish eggs ………(5)……… to water birds’ feathers or feet; the birds then fly from one body of water to the next, where the fish hatch from their eggs.
Answer:
1. are found 2. how 3. was already 4. responsible for 5. stick

3. Decline in marriage rates

The ………(1)……… in marriage rates and increase in divorce rates has led to a ………(2)……… in the proportion of the population that is formally married. In 1986, 60% of the population aged 15 years and over were married; by 2001 this proportion had decreased to 55%. ………(3)………, the proportion of the population aged 15 years and over who were never married ………(4)……… from 29% in 1986 to 32% in 2001. At the same time, the proportion of the population who were divorced increased, from 5% in 1986 to 7% in 2001, while the proportion of the population who were widowed remained at around 6%.
Answer:
1. decline 2. decrease 3. Conversely 4. increased

4. Gunpowder and fireworks

Gunpowder and fireworks might have been invented independently in Europe, but they probably reached Europe via the Mongols, who spread west from China as far as central Europe by the mid-13th century. In 1267, the English monk Roger Bacon ………(1)……… what were very likely firecrackers, which he compared with the flash of lightning and growl of thunder. In 1377 fireworks accompanied a religious mystery play by the bishop’s palace in Vicenza, and were soon used to add sparks to figures of doves, representing the Holy Spirit, or angels, made to ascend and descend from the heavens on ropes. By the 15th century, rockets were being used in Europe for military and peaceful purposes. Italian and Spanish cities in particular ………(2)……… fireworks for outdoor celebrations. The Italian metallurgist Vannoccio Biringuccio described festivities in Florence and Siena for feast days. These included ‘girandoles’ or whirling decorated wheels packed with fireworks which were ………(3)……… a rope hung across a street or square. Fireworks were also used in the German lands. An elaborate colour-painted book ………(4)……… the Schembart carnival of Nuremberg, which saw men dressed in brightly-coloured costumes parading through the town. Often these included some kind of pyrotechnics. One image shows a man wearing a hat in the form of a castle with fireworks and smoke shooting up from the towers, and interestingly, what looks like a smoking artichoke.
Answer:
1. recorded seeing 2. began to use 3. suspended from 4. commemorates

5. Supply and demand

The supply of a thing, in the phrase “supply and demand,” is the amount that will be offered for sale at each of a series of prices; the demand is the amount that will be bought at each of a series of prices. The principle that value depends on supply and demand means that in the case of nearly every commodity, more will be bought if the price is lowered, less will be bought if the price is ………(1)……… . Therefore sellers, if they wish to induce buyers to take more of a commodity than they are already doing, must reduce its price; if they raise its price, they will sell less. If there is a general falling off if in demand– due, say, to trade depression — sellers will either have to ………(2)……… prices or put less on the ………(3)……… ; they will not be able to sell the same ………(4)……… at the same price.
Answer:
1. raised 2. reduce 3. market 4. amount

Reading FIB refers to drag and drop. You will be given a paragraph and there are blanks. All the options are provided on the bottom you need to drag them and drop in the correct blanks. Here whatever the number of the blanks, you get plus three options for that paragraph. 

As an example, if there are 5 blanks, you will get 5+3=8 options for that paragraph.

You get 4-5 tasks of this item and that gets you 16-25 marks. You will get 1:30 min- 2 min for each of these tasks.

Scoring System: 

This item follows partial scoring. You can score for each correct answer and get 0 for each incorrect answer.

Importance of Reading FIB:

Reading FIB contributes to the Reading section solely. It gets 17% marks in the reading section. So, you need to be very careful about this item.

Top 10 FIB (Drag & Drop) from the July prediction file,

1. Enigma

And if the voice of an animal is not heard as a message but as art, interesting things start to happen: Nature is no longer an alien ………(1)……… but something immediately beautiful, an exuberant ………(2)……… with space for us to join in. Bird melodies have always been called songs for a ………(3)………. As long as we have been listening, people have presumed there is music coming out of those scissoring beaks.
Answer:
1. enigma 2. opus 3. reason

2. Clones

Clones of an Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) in the Bronx and other city spots grew to double the biomass of clones ………(1)……… outside small towns upstate or on Long Island, says Jillian Gregg, now of the Environmental Protection Agency’s western-ecology division in Corvallis, Ore. The growth gap comes from ………(2)……… damage, she and her New York colleagues report. Ozone chemists have known that ………(3)……… may spike skyscraper high in city air, but during a full 24 hours, rural trees actually get a higher cumulative ozone exposure from ………(4)……… pollution that ………(5)……… in and lingers. A series of new experiments now show that this hang-around ozone is the ………(6)……… factor in tree growth, the researchers say in the July 10 Nature. “This study has profound importance in showing us most vividly that rural areas ………(7)……… the ………(8)………for urban pollution,” says Stephen P. Long of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. “This work should be a wake-up call,” he adds.
Answer:
1. planted 2. ozone 3. concentrations 4. urban 5. blows 6. overwhelming 7. pay 8. price

3. Coffee

Coffee is enjoyed by millions of people every day and the ‘coffee experience’ has become a staple of our modern life and ………(1)……… . While the current body of research related to the effects of coffee ………(2)……… on human health has been contradictory, a study in the June issue of Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, which is published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), found that the potential ………(3)……… of moderate coffee drinking outweigh the risks in adult consumers for the majority of major health ………(4)……… considered.
Answer:
1. culture 2. consumption 3. benefits 4. outcomes

4. The resultant force

The overall result of two or ………(1)……… forces acting on an object is called the resultant force the resultant of twoforces is a single force, which has the same effect as the two forces combined. If two forces pull an object in ………(2)……… directions, the size of the resultant can be found by ………(3)……… one force from the other. If the forces are ………(4)………, they balance each other.
Answer:
1. more 2. opposite 3. subtracting 4. equal

5. White Paper

Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, ………(1)……… of all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and ………(2)……… fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience: in that, all our knowledge is ………(3)………, and from that, it ultimately ………(4)……… itself.
Answer:
1. void 2. boundless 3. founded 4. derives

6. Medicare

It is understandable that the government would look outside of Medicare to get the efficiency-related changes it ………(1)……… . If Medicare was capable of delivering those ………(2)………, it would have already done so. Finding another organisation that can deliver these services at a ………(3)……… cost with increased functionality, especially to the consumer of these services, makes absolute sense.The objections to making such a move will be about the potential loss of ………(4)……… from Medicare. Given how labour-intensive the current system is, this will be a genuine concern, but one that is facing all industries dealing with modernisation through improved technology.
Answer:
1. wants 2. changes 3. reduced 4. jobs

7. Australia’s Dwelling

The stock of Australia’s dwellings is ………(1)……… , with current homes having more bedrooms on average than homes ten years ago. At the same time, households are getting smaller on average with ………(2)……… proportions of couple families with children and ………(3)……… couple only and lone person households. This article ………(4)……… the changes in household size and number of bedrooms from 1994-95 to 2003-04. It also looks at the types of households with spare bedrooms and the size of recently purchased new homes compared with existing stock.
Answer:
1. evolving 2. decreasing 3. increasing 4. examines

8. Teacher’s Response

The ………(1)……… observer does not necessarily recognise the ………(2)……… in how a teacher, for instance, responds to a thoughtful question from a normally quiet student and how that may be very different from the ‘standard response’ to a commonly inquisitive or ………(3)……… student. Expert teachers are aware of what they are doing; they monitor and adjust their teaching behaviors to bring out the ………(4)……… in their students.
Answer:
1. casual 2. skill 3. talkative 4. best

9. Coral Reefs

Coral reefs ………(1)……… more marine life than any other ocean ecosystem and are, not ………(2)……… , a favorite pursuit for many divers. But as well as being physically and biologically spectacular, coral reefs also support the livelihoods of over half a billion people. What is more, this number is expected to ………(3)……… in coming decades while the area of high-quality reef is expected to halve. In combination with the very real threat of climate change, which could lead to increased seawater temperatures and ocean acidification, we start to arrive at some quite frightening scenarios.
Answer:
1. support 2. surprisingly 3. double

10. Shrimp Farm

However, proper ………(1)……… shows that for each hectare government subsidies formed $8,412 of this figure and there were costs, too: $1,000 for pollution and $12,392 for losses to ecosystem services. These comprised damages to the supply of foods and medicines that people had taken from the forest, the loss of habitats for fish, and less buffering against storms. And because a given shrimp farm only stays ………(2)……… for three or four years, there was the additional cost of restoring them afterwards.
Answer:
1. accounting 2. productive

Reorder Paragraph is one of the most difficult topics in PTE. You need to understand how the computer marks to get a good score in this item. Getting a good score is not about knowing good English. It is all about applying the techniques properly. Reading Paragraph is an item from the Reading section and it solely contributes marks in the Reading. You get 2-3 questions in the exam and 2-3 mins per task. You need to click on the sentence and drag and drop it in the target box next to it. 

Scoring System: 

The scoring system in this item is partial. You need to make a pair of 2 sentences. 1 Correct pair = 1 mark.

⇒If you have 5 sentences in the question, you need to make 4 correct pairs.

⇒If you have 4 sentences in the question, you need to make 3 pairs.

⇒You get a maximum of 5 sentences and a minimum of 4 sentences in the exam. 

⇒If the answer is incorrect that means you couldn’t make any correct pair, you get no mark there.

In Reorder Paragraph, Marking depends on the level of the difficulty of the question.

You can get level: 1,2,3,4,5

Your number of correct answers gets multiplied by the level of difficulty. For example, if you make 1 correct answer in the question of difficulty level 3, you get 1*3 = 3 marks for a correct answer and 4*3=12 marks for 4 correct answers.

Strategies & Techniques: 

1. Skim the main topic/Idea

2. Scan thoroughly/ Carefully:

• Keywords=Repeated words

• Discourse markers=Connectors= Furthermore, Moreover, However, etc.

• Pronouns: He/She/It/They/Them/That/This/Him/Her

How to identify the pair?

Strategy to Identify the 1st sentence,

• Introduction of the topic/overview/definition

• Independent sentence (Sentence that makes meaning itself)

• Can’t contain discourse markers and pronouns.

• Article: A/An/The

(Note: Don’t try to find out the 1st sentence if it is difficult. Just try to find the link between the sentence)

The pair order should be like this,

⇒General information>Specific information

⇒Introduction>Body

⇒Idea>Explanation

Find the logical flow in the sentences,

⇒Past>Present>Future

⇒Problem>Solution’

⇒Idea>example

⇒Question>Answer

⇒Full Name> Partial Name

⇒Point> Data/Statistics

In terms of having articles in the sentences, the logical flow will be like this,

The introductory sentence will be without an article> next sentence will be with a/an> then more specific information will start with ‘the’ in it.

In case of timeline, Identify the flow in,

⇒Chronological order: Follow numerical order.

(Note: Generally the flow will be like, Past>Present> Future. But if the change the topic, the order will be changed)

⇒BC vs AD (BC comes first)

⇒Century: 21st century, 18th century

Other terms to Identify the order are: a decade ago, Prior to, Before, After, Until, During, etc.

Special Note: 

• If you are not sure about the answer, just guess and move on. Don’t waste time.

• Discourse markers without a comma are not considered a connector.

Top 5 Re-order Paragraphs from the July prediction file,

1. Games affect brains

• Palaus and his colleagues wanted to see if any trends had emerged from the research to date concerning how video games affect the structure and activity of our brains.
• They collected the results from 116 scientific studies, 22 of which looked at structural changes in the brain and 100 of which looked at changes in brain functionality and/or behavior.
• The studies show that playing video games can change how our brains perform, and even their structure.
• For example, playing video games affects our attention, and some studies found that gamers show improvements in several types of attention, such as sustained attention or selective attention.

2. International Economics

• International Economics: Theory and Policy is a proven approach in which each half of the book leads with an intuitive introduction to theory and follows with self-contained chapters to cover key policy applications.
• The Eighth Edition integrates the latest research, data, and policy in hot topics such as outsourcing, economic geography, trade and environment, financial derivatives, the subprime crisis, and China’s exchange rate policies.
• New for the Eighth Edition, all end-of-chapter problems are integrated into MyEconLab, the online assessment and tutorial system that accompanies the text.
• Students get instant, targeted feedback, and instructors can encourage practice without needing to grade work by hand.

3. Understanding history

• The people and events of the past can only be understood when viewed within the larger context in which they existed.
• That is not possible when historical events or topics are isolated and extracted from the web of historic time to serve some other curricular purpose.
• The value of history also depends upon the chronological presentation of events through time.
• It is only through a chronological survey that students can begin to understand the process of social and cultural change, which is one of the principal purposes of history.

4. Photogrammetry

• Photogrammetry involves taking hundreds of photos of an object at slightly different angles and ‘stitching’ them together to create an interactive digital 3D model.
• The process is already being used by the University of Aberdeen’s anatomy department to create digital models of organs and other body parts to aid teaching and learning for young doctors.
• Now the same technology is being used to create virtual replicas of artefacts within the University’s museum’s collections, including an ancient Egyptian mummified cat, prehistoric skulls, and ancient Greek pottery.
• These artefacts are rarely handled as they are so fragile.
• Photogrammetry lets the public and students get to see them close-up and in very high detail.

5. Chimpanzees

• A simple way to disprove this hypothesis (the Innateness Hypothesis) is to demonstrate that other species have the capacity to speak but for some reason simply have not developed speech.
• A logical candidate for such a species is the chimpanzee, which shares 98.4% of the human genetic code.
• Chimpanzees cannot speak because, unlike homo sapiens, their vocal cords are located higher in their throats and cannot be controlled as delicately as human vocal cords.
• It does not follow from their lack of speech, however, that chimpanzees are incapable of language.
• Perhaps they can acquire grammar like humans if they could only express it some other way.

In Reading MCQ Single, a text is shown for reading. After reading the text a multiple-choice question on the content or tone of the text needs to be answered by selecting one response.

In Reading MCQ Multiple, a text needs to be read and afterward, a multiple-choice question on the content or tone of the text needs to be answered by selecting more than one response.

Scoring system:

You get 1-2  questions for each of the items. You get 1 mark for each correct response and get 0 for each incorrect response.

Types of Questions

There are 2 TYPES of Question 

• Specific

  • What are the features of a penguin that keeps it warm in winter?

• Non-Specific

  • What is the main idea of the passage?

1. True or False

2. Not True or not false

3. True except or false expect

4. Can be inferred or can’t be inferred.

5. Can be agreed or can’t be agreed.

Strategy:

• Skimming and Scanning 

• Reading Questions First 

• Reading Options Second 

• Eliminating Options 

• Selecting ones 100% certain

In MCQ’s elimination method is the best solution to get the answer easily. To Eliminate the options, you need to follow the steps below,

• Information that doesn’t match what is in the question / being asked

• Tweaked facts that appear to be the correct answer

• Opposite details

• Additional information

• Partial information 

• Irrelevant information

Click on the link to get the full PTE score matrix: https://blog.apical.io/pte-scoring-matrix/

Click to know more: https://www.pearsonpte.com/pte-academic/reading