There are two Multiple choice questions in PTE Exam. Today we will deal with multiple-choice, single answer from the PTE Reading section.
Here you will get a passage of up to 300 words. You’ll see the passage on the left side and on the right side, you will see multiple-choice questions with several answers. In this question type, there is only ONE correct answer.
First, we’ll look at how the question type is scored, and then we’ll go into ways to find that correct answer…
Scoring Metric
In this question type, only your reading score is evaluated. This is where the PTE AI judges your ability to analyze, interpret, and evaluate a short passage. As there is no negative marking in this section, you should always attempt all the questions, even if you are unsure about your answer.
With that out of the way, let’s dive deeper into the best approaches for you to find correct answer.
Let us summarize the steps for you and we’ll discuss each approach in detail.
- Read the question first to identify keywords
- Skim the text
- Eliminate
- Don’t waste time reading the whole text… go with your guts
Now let’s begin our step-by-step approach to find the correct answer in PTE Reading Multiple Choice questions.
Read question first
Immediately upon the start of this question, you will see a wall of text on your left and a set of multiple-choice questions on your right.
Now, if you start by reading the text, you will get overwhelmed.
That’s why we suggest you always read the questions first. And then look at the answers.
The reason why we say this is because… once you look at the question and its possible answers, you will have a good idea of what the text is about. You’ll understand the context of the passage.
And doing this helps you in identifying the keywords you need to look out for, in the text. This means you’ll have a good idea of where to start and what to look for to get your answer.
Skim the text
After that, we recommend that you skim the text. Keep an eye out for the keywords and their synonyms. When you see anything related to your keywords, you’ll know that you are close to getting the correct answer.
Eliminate
One easy way you can get close to a correct answer is by matching and eliminating the options with what you find in the text.
To do this, you must understand the context of your question and the text in which your closest answer appears in.
Usually, the incorrect answers are unrelated to the context of your question and the text. So, find your keywords and read around them to hone in on the correct answer.
Don’t waste time reading the whole text… Go with your guts
However, don’t waste too much time in this section. As per our calculation, you have a maximum of 2 minutes for each question here.
If you find it difficult to identify the most relevant option… just pick one. As there is no negative marking… go with your guts. You may just hit the correct option 😉
And remember… just because you see the same word in the text, it doesn’t mean that you have found the right part to look in.
Read your question carefully and make sure that the keyword or its synonym appears in the same context as the question.
The key in this section is to identify the keywords, eliminate the most obvious wrong answers until you find the correct answer.
There is only so much information we can pack into a blog post for this question type. That’s why, to get a deeper insight into how to actually do a proper break-down of this question type, our only recommendation is to keep practicing.
If you need expert guidance, then you can always contact us at 0422279722 or send us an email at info@creativeeducations.com.au
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