PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks Practice

PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks presents 4 to 5 gap-filling items that test vocabulary range and the ability to follow the flow of an argument. Test-takers drag words into blanks, and Pearson awards one mark per correct blank with no penalty for wrong answers. Reading the full sentence before choosing a word is the single highest-value tactic.

PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks at a glance

Detail	What Pearson specifies
Test part	Reading. The whole reading part runs 23 to 30 minutes
Text length	Up to 80 words
Format	Drag and drop. Words sit in a bank below the text and you drag each one into a gap
Skills scored	Reading only
Practical rule	The word bank holds more words than there are gaps. Fill the gaps you are certain of first, then use the shrinking bank to narrow the rest

Format details follow the official PTE Academic test format published by Pearson.

The gap-filling task is one of the key components of the PTE Reading test. It evaluates your vocabulary and ability to identify the flow of arguments in a given text passage. 

Time management is also the key to success. You would not want to spend five minutes struggling with one gap. It’s because the entire reading section lasts only 30 to 40 minutes.

In this guide, PTE Magic will share with you some tips for PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks successfully implemented by thousands of advanced learners.

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Key Takeaways

• The gap-filling task evaluates your vocabulary and ability to identify the flow of arguments in a given text passage.
• You can expect to encounter 4 to 5 reading/gap-filling items during the test.
• This guide will share six tips for PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks, which have been successfully implemented by thousands of advanced learners.

Related:

• PTE modules and test-taking tips for beginners
• Effective PTE preparation tips for your next test

Overview Of The Section

The PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks task will give you a passage of up to 80 words with a few gaps.

There is a blue box at the bottom of the text, containing several words.

Test-takers are required to fill those blank spaces with the given words by dragging them to the correct places.

However, more words are provided than the available gaps, so you should think carefully to choose the precise answer.

You can left-click and drag the words between blanks or drag them back to the blue box. 

This part doesn’t come with a timer, so you need to manage the time wisely.

Sample: In the text below some words are missing. Drag words from the box below to the appropriate place in the text. To undo an answer choice, drag the word back to the box below the text.

The space work for an astronaut can be inside or _______. Inside, they can monitor machines and the work is _______ out alongside the craft. They also need to make sure the Space _______. _______ the craft, they can see how the seeds react in the space. Some seed companies send seeds to them _______ to see how seeds change their biological character. When outside the craft, they can _______ experiments or clean up the space rubbish.

 

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How Many Items of PTE Fill In The Blanks Are Included In The Test?

You can expect to encounter 4 to 5 reading/gap-filling items during the test.

What Is The Task About?

Most texts are quite short, only 80 words at maximum, and contain 3 to 5 blanks to fill in. Below the texts, a box displays 6 to 8 words to choose from. 

As you can see, the number of given options is higher than the number of blanks. So, each candidate has to carefully assess the words’ meaning, degree of expression, and relevance to the sentence. 

How Is It Scored?

PTE applies a Correct/Incorrect system for the task. Specifically, you will gain points for every correctly filled blank and zero points for wrong answers. There is no negative marking or point deduction for the latter.

6 PTE Reading Fill In The Blanks Tips

Tip 1: Manage Your Time

We suggest solving each item in 2 minutes or less. That should not be challenging, given that the passages are quite short. You can skim through them to grasp the general context and word type required. For instance, should it be a verb, adverb, adjective, or noun?

Tip 2: Monitor The Technicalities

While time management is crucial, there is no need to rush your answer. Make sure the word is dropped correctly into the gap, recheck whether it is filled, and confirm no blanks are left empty before clicking the “Next” button. 

Note that once you hit “Next,” the answers cannot be changed – all the more reason to be cautious.

Tip 3: Use Your Grammar Knowledge

Contrary to popular belief that grammar knowledge is only important in writing or speaking tasks, it also plays a major role in gap-filling questions. 

As mentioned, you can predict whether the word required is a verb, noun, or adjective based on the sentence’s structure. Other grammatical aspects also help speed up your process, such as:

• Tenses (present/past/past perfect, etc.)
• Word collocations, prepositions
• Singular and plural forms
• Countable and uncountable nouns (the latter do not require a/an) 

Tip 4: Enrich Your Vocabulary During Practice

Passages and articles in PTE tests cover various topics, ranging from science and literature to the humanities. As a beginner, you must have felt quite overwhelmed by the amount of academic words and terminology.

It is not too late; you can start building your vocabulary today. 

Read academic journals and articles, find as many practice tests as possible, and note down all unknown words to look up afterward. Remember to search their synonyms and antonyms as well.

Tip 5: Use Elimination Strategy

Narrowing your options with the elimination strategy is also highly recommended. Pay attention to the contextual clues surrounding the gaps, then cross out all options that seem incompatible or clearly do not fit in.

Grammatical knowledge also helps here, especially if the box provides several words with seemingly similar meanings. 

For instance, suppose you have to choose from “Predict,” “Foresee,” and “Forecast,” and you are unsure about the difference between their meanings and contextual usages. 

In that case, eliminating the wrong answer based on prepositions will be a wise move. 

Make Guesses If You Are Unsure

As mentioned, there is no negative marking for wrongly filled blanks. So, making educated guesses is much better than skipping the questions altogether. 

An unfilled gap equals a zero score, after all,  while even the wildest guesses could still earn you some points in the best scenario.

Let’s say you have already applied the elimination strategy or other techniques to narrow options. The chances of correct answers are still quite high, even when you are not 100% confident. 

6 Mistakes To Avoid

Overlook The Context

A proven tip for test-takers is to spot collocations and phrasal verbs to select the answer more easily.

This strategy can be a double-edged knife, making you too focused on spotting common phrases rather than understanding the whole text.

For example:

“The increasing use of social media leads to a feeling of social____.”

The options include: Challenges, connection, and isolation.

In this case, you might rush to choose “connection” because “social connection” is a common phrase.

However, given the context of the sentence, “isolation” is the correct answer.

So, here’s the kicker: Before filling any gaps, read over the passage to grasp its overall meaning and context.

The prompt is quite short, so this shouldn’t take you more than 1 minute.

Ignore The Grammar & Collocations

Contrary to the above mistake, some candidates prioritize comprehending the meaning over grammatical cues.

Sometimes, using your own knowledge about collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, and common phrases will come in handy.

For example:

“The rapid development of AI has a profound_____on many aspects, from education to the economy.”

Even if you haven’t checked the available words, it’s easy to guess that the correct answer might be “impact,” which normally comes with “on.”

Other grammatical rules, such as parts of speech, word forms, subject-verb agreement, tenses, singular/plural forms, etc., are also worth considering.

For instance, if the word before the gap is an adjective, it’s likely that we need to fill the blank with a noun.

Choose Words That Don’t Fit The Tone

For many test-takers, the tone of the text always comes after its meaning, context, and grammar. 

Despite being a minor element, it sometimes decides whether you can earn 1 point.

If the passage follows a more formal tone, selecting a casual, informal word is downright improper. 

When you’re confused between two words with similar meanings, it’s time to consider the tone of the text!

Linger On A Blank For Too Long

As mentioned, there’s no timer for this task, so being fixated on a single gap is a complete waste of time.

Instead, try to fill in all the blanks that you’re certain of first.

For the remaining, you can resort to the elimination method since there are now fewer words to choose from.

Make A Second-Guess

While guessing is an effective method when you’re uncertain about the answers, you shouldn’t second-guess.

Unless you find a really strong reason for switching to another option, don’t change your answer.

Don’t Spend Time Reviewing The Answers

Once you finish filling in all the gaps, don’t rush to hit the “Next” button!

Instead, spend about 1 minute reading over the text again to double-check.

Do all the words make sense?

Do they fit in the context?

Do they follow grammatical rules?

After ticking all these boxes, you can proceed with the following questions.

FAQs

How is PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks scored?

You will receive 1 point for each correct response and 0 points for an incorrect one.

No negative points are applied here.

How many Reading Fill in the Blanks questions are in PTE?

You can expect 4 to 5 Fill in the Blanks questions in the PTE Reading section.

Do spelling and capitalisation matter in PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks?

Not at all!

All the words are given in advance, so you don’t have to worry about their spellings or typos.

Should you guess in PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks?

Yes, it’s recommended to make a guess if you’re unsure or don’t even know the answer.

Since wrong responses won’t affect your score, counting on luck can be the last resort to get a point.

What is the difference between PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks and Reading & Writing Fill in the Blanks?

There are three main differences:

First, the prompt in Reading Fill in the Blanks is shorter than the other (80 words vs. 300 words at most).

Also, for the Reading & Writing part, the word options are given in a drop-down list in each gap, while for the other, all words are listed in a box at the bottom.

Lastly, the Reading Fill in the Blanks task only affects your Reading score, but the other one contributes to both your Reading and Writing scores.

Conclusion

As a beginner, you might struggle with the PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks the first few times, but remember that practice makes perfect. 

Keep the tips above in mind as you go, and read as many authentic materials as possible on a daily basis to familiarize yourself with academic words of varied topics. 

Still need advice? Feel free to reach out to our support team anytime.

PTE Reading Fill in the Blanks practice questions with answers

The drag-and-drop Reading Fill in the Blanks task uses a text of up to 80 words with a word bank underneath. The six passages below sit inside that limit and are built the way the real item is built: the distractors are the wrong grammatical form of the right word, not unrelated vocabulary. That is the whole skill — you are being tested on collocation and word form, not on whether you know the topic.

How to practise these Reading Fill in the Blanks questions

1. Read the whole passage before touching a blank. Several blanks are decided by a word that appears after them.
2. Name the part of speech first. If the blank follows “a serious”, you need a noun; if it follows “can”, you need a bare verb. This eliminates most of the bank before you think about meaning.
3. Use the leftovers. The bank usually has more words than blanks. If two blanks look plausible for the same word, the one that has no alternative wins it.
4. No negative marking here. Unlike Reading Multiple Choice Multiple Answers, this task does not penalise wrong answers — so fill every blank, always.
5. Check the sentence reads naturally aloud. Collocation errors sound wrong before you can explain why.

Practice passage 1

Volcanic ash can travel thousands of kilometres from its (1) ______, and because the particles are abrasive they pose a serious (2) ______ to aircraft engines. Airlines therefore (3) ______ flights on the basis of forecast ash plumes rather than visible cloud. The economic cost of these closures is high, but the alternative is (4) ______.

Word bank: cancel · cancellation · hazard · hazardous · resource · source · unacceptable · unacceptably

Practice passage 2

Ice cores drilled from the Antarctic plateau contain air bubbles that were (1) ______ when the surrounding snow compacted. Because each layer corresponds to a single year, researchers can (2) ______ atmospheric composition back roughly 800,000 years. The record is not (3) ______, since meltwater can blur individual layers, but agreement between cores from different sites gives the chronology considerable (4) ______.

Word bank: continuous · continuously · credibility · credible · reconstruct · reconstruction · trapped · trapping

Practice passage 3

Fermentation was originally a method of (1) ______ rather than a way of improving flavour. Bacteria that produce acid lower the pH of the food, which (2) ______ the growth of the organisms that cause spoilage. The technique spread wherever refrigeration was (3) ______, and the distinctive tastes we now value were an incidental (4) ______ of the chemistry.

Word bank: available · consequence · consequently · inhibited · inhibits · preservation · preserving · unavailable

Practice passage 4

Migratory birds navigate using several (1) ______ systems at once: the position of the sun, the pattern of stars, and an ability to detect the Earth’s magnetic field. Experiments in which one cue is (2) ______ show that the others compensate, which suggests the systems are redundant by design. This redundancy is probably why migration routes stay (3) ______ even when weather makes a single cue (4) ______ for days at a time.

Word bank: independence · independent · removed · removing · stability · stable · unreliable · unreliably

Practice passage 5

Roman harbour concrete has survived two thousand years of seawater, an environment that (1) ______ modern concrete within decades. Analysis has shown that seawater reacting with volcanic ash in the mixture (2) ______ new minerals inside the cracks, so the material strengthens as it ages. Reproducing this today is difficult because that specific ash is not widely (3) ______, and modern building codes require (4) ______ setting times.

Word bank: access · accessible · degradation · degrades · formation · forms · predictable · prediction

Practice passage 6

A language is generally considered (1) ______ when the last fluent speaker dies, but functional loss occurs much earlier. Once a language stops being (2) ______ to children at home, its remaining speakers age together and the community loses the ability to coin new words. Documentation projects can therefore (3) ______ a grammar and a dictionary while being unable to prevent the (4) ______ itself.

Word bank: decline · declining · extinct · extinction · preservation · preserve · transmitted · transmitting

Answers

Passage	1	2	3	4	What decided it
1	source	hazard	cancel	unacceptable	“a serious” forces a noun; “is” forces an adjective, not an adverb
2	trapped	reconstruct	continuous	credibility	“can” forces a bare verb; “considerable” forces an abstract noun
3	preservation	inhibits	unavailable	consequence	“a method of” forces a noun; the logic of the sentence forces the negative form
4	independent	removed	stable	unreliable	“several ___ systems” forces an adjective; “is” forces the past participle
5	degrades	forms	accessible	predictable	“that” introduces a relative clause needing a finite verb
6	extinct	transmitted	preserve	decline	“considered” takes an adjective; “prevent the” takes a noun

What your mistakes are telling you

If you chose…	The gap in your English is…	What to drill
the –ly adverb where an adjective belongs	Recognising linking verbs (is, was, seems, becomes) that take adjectives	Twenty sentences with linking verbs, adjective vs adverb
the –ing form where a past participle belongs	Active versus passive voice	Rewrite active sentences as passive and back
the abstract noun where a verb belongs	Reading the word immediately before the blank	Underline the word before every blank before you choose
the positive form where the negative belongs	Following the argument, not just the grammar	Summarise each passage in one line before filling blanks

Worth knowing: this task and the dropdown Reading & Writing Fill in the Blanks look similar but are not scored the same way. The dropdown version uses a text of up to 300 words and tests grammar alongside vocabulary; the drag-and-drop version caps the text at 80 words and is almost purely a collocation test. Neither carries negative marking, so leave nothing blank in either.

Related PTE Reading guides

• PTE Reading Multiple Choice: Tips
• PTE Reading Multiple Choice: Single Answer
• PTE Reorder Paragraphs: Practice Tips
• PTE Reading: Format, Tips & Practice