PTE Reading Practice Test: Sample Paper
It includes different types of questions such as multiple-choice, reorder paragraphs, and fill-in-the-blanks.
The texts may be academic or general in nature, and you'll need to demonstrate a good understanding of the content to answer the questions accurately.
It's important to manage your time effectively as you work through the different tasks in this section.
Reading & Writing: Fill In The Blanks
Direction: Look at the text below with blanks. Choose the appropriate word from the provided lists for each blank.
Question 1.
Want to know what will make you happy? Then ask a total stranger — or so says a new study from Harvard University, which shows that another person’s experience is often more ________________ than your own best guess. The study, which appears in the current issue of Science, was led by Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard and author of the 2007 bestseller “Stumbling on Happiness,” along with Matthew Killingsworth and Rebecca Eyre, also of Harvard, and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia. “If you want to know how much you will enjoy an experience, you are better off knowing how much someone else enjoyed it than knowing anything about the experience itself,” says Gilbert. “Rather than closing our eyes and __________________ the future, we should examine the experience of those who have been there. Previous research in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics has shown that people have difficulty predicting what they will like and how much they will like it, which __________________ them to make a wide variety of poor decisions. Interventions aimed at ___________________ the accuracy with which people imagine future events have been generally unsuccessful.
1. Informal, informative, positive, and predictable.
2. Imagining, imitating, predicting, and visualising.
3. Leads, forces, requires, compels.
4. Reducing, improving, advancing, controlling
Answer 1:
1. Informative
2. Imagining
3. Leads
4. Improving
Question 2:
A mini helicopter modelled on flying tree seeds could soon be flying overhead. Evan Ulrich and colleagues at the University of Maryland in College Park _______________ the biological world for inspiration to build a scaled-down helicopter that could mimic the properties of full—size aircraft. The complex _______________ of full—size helicopters gets less efficient when shrunk, ________________ that standard mini helicopters expend most of their power simply fighting to stay stable in the air. The researchers realised that a simpler aircraft designed to stay stable passively would use much less power and reduce manufacturing costs to boot. It turns out that nature ________________ them to it. The seeds of trees such as the maple have a single—blade structure that ________________ them to fly far away and drift safely to the ground. These seeds, known as samaras, need no engine to _______________ through the air, thanks to a process called autorotation. By analysing the behaviour of the samara with high—speed cameras, Ulrich and his team could copy its design.
1. turned to, came across, stayed within, dropped in
2. overhaul, gauge, imagination, design
3. denying, meaning, objecting, proving
4. never leads, will drive, had beaten, is holding
5. charges, pushes, allows, hampers
6. spin, fluctuate, drift, bob
Answer 2:
1. Turned to
2. Design
3. Meaning
4. Had beaten
5. Allows
6. Spin
Question 3:
There has been increased research interest in the use of active video games (in which players physically interact with images on screen) as a means to _______________ physical activity in children. The aim of this review was to assess active video games as a means of increasing energy expenditure and physical activity behavior in children. Studies were obtained from computerised searches of multiple electronic bibliographic databases. The last search was conducted in December 2008. Eleven studies focused on the quantification of the energy cost associated with playing active video games, and eight studies focused on the utility of active video games as an __________________ to increase physical activity in children. Compared with traditional non-active video games, active video games _________________ greater energy expenditure, which was similar in intensity to mild to moderate intensity physical activity. The intervention studies indicate that active video games may have the potential to increase free-living physical activity and improve body __________________ in children; however, methodological limitations prevent __________________ conclusions. Future research should focus on larger, methodologically sound intervention trials to provide definitive answers as to whether this technology is effective in ______________ long-term physical activity in children.
1. Promote, obstruct, examine, inspect
2. Promotion, intervention, development, revision
3. Reduce, consume, elicited, spread
4. Tissue, composition, nutrition, element
5. Definitive, positive, optimistic, optimal
6. Obstructing, assessing, reviewing, promoting
Answer 3:
1. Promote
2. Intervention
3. Elicited
4. Composition
5. Definitive
6. Promoting
Question 4:
A giant turtle made from discarded plastic trash will greet visitors to the British Science Festival this week. The plastic containers, bottles and cups were collected locally in Hull, where the event is taking place at the city's university. Standing 3.5m tall (11.5ft), the art installation __________ was commissioned by the University of Hull with the aim of raising awareness of plastic waste. Professor Dan Parsons, director of the university's Energy and Environment Institute, said: 'Marine pollution is a mounting global challenge, which is _______________ having devastating consequences. We have a duty to protect these fragile environments and the marine life and ecosystems which we ______________ home. The university has commissioned this installation as a physical _________________ of what is ending up in the oceans, but also to ask visitors to campus to stop and think what they could do to try to reduce their own waste.'
1. has, being, have, was
2. only, already, otherwise, yet
3. settle, call, originate, go
4. reminder, receipt, reinforcement, recognition
Answer 4:
1. Was
2. Already
3. Call
4. Reminder
Question 5:
The process of delegation comprises the decision to delegate, the briefing, and the follow-up. At each of these points, _______________ the potential problems. When you delegate, you are delegating the right to perform an _______________, you are delegating the right to make decisions. It is important to be ______________, as the person to whom you delegate may have a better and faster way of completing a job than you. Despite all these, you retain the ______________ responsibility. It is helpful to others if you can provide ______________ feedback on their performance.
1. Learn, anticipate, summarise, think
2. Action, exercise, observation, execution
3. Smart, clever, feasible, flexible
4. Decision, complete, overall, major
5. More, constructive, critical, and comprehensive
Answer 5:
1. Anticipate
2. Action
3. Flexible
4. Overall
5. Constructive
Re-Order Paragraphs
Directions: The text boxes in the left panel have been placed randomly. Mark them in the correct order to restore the original order.
Question 6:
A. Moreover, he had been studying in four different schools.
B. Moreover his academic performance was not good.
C. There is one 11-year old boy who had been adopted by five families.
D. The consequence is that he has problems fitting into society.
E. He was sent to his relatives’ family in order for him to be well taken care of.
Answer 6 : CADBE
Question 7:
A. This makes you memorise, for these, you take notes and construct sentences.
B. After that, this would help you revise and exercise keywords.
C. To be a good listener, you should take notes.
D. In the lecture, you should be a good listener.
Answer 7: DCAB
Question 8:
A. This is likely to affect the UK’s climate and economy with anticipated impacts on industries like tourism and fisheries.
B. The response of the Arctic to climate change will have an unprecedented impact on how the Arctic ecosystem operates.
C. Some of the clearest signs of change are the thinning and retreat of sea ice and the migration of species into the Arctic that normally live at lower latitudes.
D. With the Arctic the fastest warming region on the planet, climate change is already altering a key component of the Arctic environment.
Answer 8: DCBA
Fill In The Blanks
Directions: Some words are missing from the text below. Move words from the box below to the appropriate place in the text.
Question 9:
The poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is about the ______________ that one makes in life. It tells about a man who comes to a ____________ in the road he is travelling upon. He feels _____________ that he cannot travel _______________ paths as he must choose one. Frost uses this fork in the road to represent a point in the man’s life where he has to choose the ________________ he wishes to take in life.
fork choices both direction sorry |
Answer 9:
1. Choices
2. Fork
3. Sorry
4. Both
5. Direction
Question 10:
Montego Bay is the second largest city in Jamaica by area and the third by population. It is a lively and ________________ beach resort and attracts a lot of tourists from many different countries with its ______________ beaches and _______________ relaxing atmosphere. Many Americans and Europeans, as well as Jamaicans, have summer homes in Montego Bay, so it is a ________________ city and becomes more _________________ during the holiday seasons. It is most famous for Doctor’s Cave beach, which has clear, turquoise waters.
Cosmopolitan Sandy Crowded Peaceful Bustling |
Answer 10:
1. Bustling
2. Sandy
3. Peaceful
4. Cosmopolitan
5. Crowded
Question 11:
By the Bronze Age drinking vessels were being made of sheet metal, primarily bronze or gold. However, the peak of feasting - and in particular, of the 'political' type of feast - came in the late Hallstatt period (about 600-450 BC), soon after the foundation of the Greek ______________ of Massalia (Marseille) at the mouth of the Rhine. From that date on, the blood of the grape began to make its way north and east along major river systems together with imported metal and ceramic drinking vessels from the Greek world. ___________ was thus added to the list of mood-altering beverages - such as mead and ale (see colored text below) - available to establish social networks in Iron Age Europe. Attic pottery fragments found at hillforts such as Hinesburg in Germany and luxury goods such as the monumental 5th century Greek bronze krater (or wine mixing vessel) found at Vix in Burgundy supply archaeological evidence of this interaction. Organic _______________ such as leather or wooden wine barrels may also have traveled north into Europe but have not survived. It is unknown what goods were _____________ in return, but they may have included salted meat, hides, timber, amber and slaves.
Traded wine containers colony |
Answer 11:
1. Colony
2. Wine
3. Containers
4. Traded
Question 12:
For all his fame and celebration, William Shakespeare remains a ____________ figure with regards to personal history. There are just two primary _____________ for information on the Bard: his works, and various legal and ______________ documents that have survived from Elizabethan times. Naturally, there are many ____________ in this body of information, which tells us little about Shakespeare. the man.
Gaps mysterious church sources |
Answer 12:
1. Mysterious
2. Sources
3. Church
4. Gaps
