PTE Reading Fill in the blanks | FREE PTE Tutorials

We have a question for you to begin with!

What is the most important factor in the PTE Reading Fill in the blanks questions? Is it your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary or is it your logical thinking?

We will give you the answer soon along with other suggestions on what to do to get full marks in this question type in your PTE exam, but first let’s get the basics out of the way. For more tips and tricks you refer to our PTE Reading Fill in the blanks Tips and Tricks article.

This is how the Fill in the blanks questions in PTE Academic look like:

You have a text on your screen with a number of blanks in it. Below the text there is a pool of words. You have to identify the right words and drag and drop them into the correct blank. The words in the pool are more than the blanks. That means there are some extra words.

What will be your first step when dealing with such questions?

The first step should be to quickly skim through the text. Don’t spend too much time, just a few seconds to get an idea of the text. Often when you understand a text you will be able to guess the missing words even without looking at the blanks.

Using your logic you will be able to come up with some options to complete the blanks!

Then you should look at the words in the option pool. Which one seems to fit in the blank first?

There are couple of ways to decide this:

First, using the grammar rules you can determine whether a noun or a verb or something else will complete the sentence. Then you should focus only on those options which are of that type.

Second, you can also see which words make logical sense! If a noun will complete the sentence but there are 2 or 3 nouns in the options, then you will need to decide on the basis of your logic.

Finally, do not hurry! Sometimes you will see an option and immediately feel it is the correct one. But when you look at the other options your opinion might change, or you might realize your mistake.

Point to note:

If you feel stuck at a blank, don’t waste your time! Move on to the next. Once you have filled in a few blanks and eliminated some options, the rest will become easier. It will become easier to complete the remaining blanks. Do check out our other article on the Tips and Tricks that you can use to score better in PTE Fill in the blanks as well as other PTE questions.

One more important point: How much time should you spend on each question?

As a rough guideline don’t spend more than 2 minutes on a question of this type. But once you have done some practice you will get a better idea of how to divide your time. We strongly recommend that you get the scored PTE mock tests. You will receive a real exam practice experience and accurate score card along with indication of areas in which you need to improve. All the online PTE Course packages also include plenty of other practice tests and materials as well.