Hi everyone! Welcome back. In this post we will see reding fill in the blanks. There are two types of fill in the blanks in reading section. Fill in the blanks drag and drop, which contributes marks only for reading section and the other one is drop-down, which contributes marks for both reading and writing sections.
For reading fill in the blanks if you think that you can score well by practicing in a week or month then you are wrong. It is purely based on grammar and vocabulary, which could be improved only if you have reading habit. Practice materials alone will not give you the marks. Therefore, read the newspaper everyday or watch some news channels, brush up the collocations and learn as many vocabularies as possible. Don’t consider whatsapp or facebook articles as they are not perfect and have many errors.
Now we will see some strategies to improve marks in this task.
Understand the task
The below are the basic difference between drag and drop and drop-down.
5 questions will be asked in drag and drop, and 5 or 6 questions in drop-down. As I already said, drag and drop is scored for reading section and drop-down is scored for both reading and writing. 1 mark for each correct answer and no negative marks.
For both of these tasks, grammar, vocabulary and collocations are much important. You have to improve your skills in grammar, vocabulary and collocations to score well in fill in the blanks.
Grammar
Grammar plays an important role in reading fill in the blanks. Before reading any article or newspaper learn the basic grammar such as present, past, future tense, past participle, past perfect tense and all. For example, if you see any answer with the continuous tense ‘ing’ then it should join with the verb is/was/will be. Like ‘He is playing’, ‘It was raining yesterday’. If the word ends with ‘ed’ then it should be past tense or past perfect tense or future perfect tense. Know all these things before practicing reading fill in the blanks. If you know the grammar, then you are 50% good and can easily fit the answers in the correct blanks.
Vocabulary
Know the synonyms as much as possible. Whatever new word that you see or hear, google it immediately and try to remember it in your own way. You cannot do this spontaneously. You have to read the books or newspaper atleast 1 hour every day for a month to improve yourself.
Collocations
Collocation is nothing but two different words are connecting each other. You should be able to tell the other word if you see the first word in the sentence. Example: active participant. You can see a huge list of collocations in the below Pearson website itself.
Academic Collocation List – If you read all the words many times from this link, you will be able to remember many words unknowingly.
Drag and drop Fill in the Blanks – Techniques
For this type of question – There is a passage with some missing words. You have a list of words under the text that you can use to fill the gaps. Read the passage quickly. Understanding the meaning of whole text helps you choose the correct word for each blank. And while reading itself try to fill the blanks with the given options, which will save some time.
First fill the known blanks – in terms of grammar, vocabulary and collocation words. Exclude grammatically incorrect words, pick the word that fits the blank, or collocation words if any. With the remaining blanks read all the options again, exclude whichever doesn’t fit and fill the right ones. Don’t leave the options even if you have already filled it. Because sometimes you might have filled the wrong ones. If you feel so, then replace it with the correct one.
Remember that there will be more options than the given blanks and you will not use all of them provided. There might be two different words with correct grammar, but the meaning will be different. Therefore, read some words before and after the blank, which helps you identify the correct word and check if the meaning of the selected word will fit that blank. Always apply grammar, vocabulary and collocation for the given options before filling it in the blank.
Drop-down Fill in the Blanks – Techniques
For this type of question – There are 4 to 5 words in the drop-down menu and you need to select the correct one for each blank of the paragraph. The meaning of the options will be somewhat related to each other but not all the words will fit the blank. So select carefully. Read the whole paragraph. Sometimes the whole idea will be somewhere in the middle of the paragraph, which helps you to identify the answer. Therefore, read the entire paragraph quickly.
Pick words that match the meaning and grammar– Even in this type of blank, grammar, vocabulary and collocations play an important role. If you know the meaning of the words, you can easily relate it with the sentence. You can then check the grammar to see whether the word fits the blanks or not. Looking at the surrounding context will help to choose the appropriate word. Reading either side of the blank will help you narrow down the choices you have to make. Sometimes you may see the opposite words or repeated words of the blanks, which help you find the answer more quickly.
Because the choices in the drop-down menus may look quite similar but will have different meanings and may also be related to the main topic. Therefore, while practicing know the meaning of other words as well in the drop-down list even if you answer the blank correctly. In that way, you will come to know the meaning of many words, which improves your reading ability and it will be helpful in the real exam.
Practicing enormous materials without knowing the meaning, will probably waste your time as it will not improve your reading skills. Therefore, as I already mentioned read as much articles as possible and know the meaning of words before taking the mock tests.
Conclusion
Ok that’s all about fill in the blanks. It is very important task in reading section as it contributes more marks. Try to answer all correct because sometimes you may end up with 77 or 78 in the entire section, which screws up your whole preparation. Therefore, concentrate well and answer correctly. Moreover, time management is also another factor, which makes you to lose marks. While practicing itself take only 2 to 2.5 minutes for each question so that you won’t miss any questions at the end.
I would like to share one more thing. There is a hidden secret in PTE, which is not known by many. There are some extra marks provided in each section. Therefore, even if you make mistake, you can still get 90. It happened to me. For speaking and writing sections, based on the performance the marks will be given but in reading section the marks will be given based on correct answers.
In my exam in reading fill in the blanks, I have realised that I made one wrong answer after cross checking with the source. But I got 90 in reading section. And this is even proven by many people. So don’t worry if you made a mistake. Keep attending with full confidence and don’t lose hope. Even if you make many mistakes still there is a chance to get 79+. Ok if you need any other information, please let me know. I will try to make a video on that particular topic. Thanks for watching all my videos and providing positive comments. Have a great day ahead.
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