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PTE Academic Reading Practice With Answers

Lume Test

Published on: September 4, 2026

PTE Academic Part 2 Reading runs 23 to 30 minutes across five task types. Their text lengths differ substantially, and one of them carries negative marking — which means the right answering strategy is not the same across the section.

Each set below gives the task, the practice items, and an answer key that explains the distractors.

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Key Takeaways

Five Reading task types in 23 to 30 minutes, with text lengths from 80 to 350 words.
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers deducts marks for incorrect selections; nothing else in Reading does.
Two tasks score both Reading and Writing, which makes them worth more per minute.
Reorder Paragraph scores partial credit on adjacent pairs, so an imperfect order still scores.
Fill in the Blanks drag-and-drop uses a shared pool, so place the certain gaps first.

The five task types

Task	Text length	Skills scored	Scoring
Fill in the Blanks (dropdown)	Up to 300 words	Reading, Writing	Partial credit
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers	Up to 350 words	Reading	Minus 1 per incorrect selection
Reorder Paragraph	Up to 150 words	Reading	Partial credit on adjacent pairs
Fill in the Blanks (drag and drop)	Up to 80 words	Reading	Partial credit
Multiple Choice, Single Answer	Up to 300 words	Reading	No deduction

Note the two Fill in the Blanks tasks are different: the dropdown version is longer and scores Writing as well, while the drag-and-drop version is short and uses a shared word pool.

Set 1: Fill in the Blanks, dropdown

Every city planning department now claims that parks pay for themselves. The claim is not empty, but it is remarkably hard to substantiate, because the benefits of a park are diffuse, delayed and distributed across people who never enter it.

The oldest method of putting a number on this is hedonic pricing, which reads the value of a park out of house prices. If two otherwise identical houses differ only in their distance from a park, the price difference is taken as the market’s valuation of park access. The method is elegant and the data are abundant. Its weakness is that it captures only what property markets (1) ___, which means it values a park to the people who can afford to live near it and (2) ___ nothing for the bus passenger who visits weekly.

Contingent valuation takes the opposite approach and asks people what they would pay. Economists have documented systematic distortions: respondents give higher figures for a described gain than they will (3) ___ for an identical loss, and their stated amounts are influenced by whatever number the survey mentions first. Practitioners (4) ___ the method on the grounds that it captures values no market records, which is true, and that the distortions can be corrected, which is (5) ___.

Blank	Options	Answer	Reasoning
1	(A) capitalise (B) capitalisation (C) capital (D) capitalising	A	Finite verb with plural subject “markets”
2	(A) register (B) registers (C) registering (D) registration	B	Singular verb, parallel with “values”
3	(A) accept (B) refuse (C) reject (D) demand	A	Willingness to accept versus to pay — the standard asymmetry
4	(A) reject (B) defend (C) abandon (D) question	B	“on the grounds that” introduces support
5	(A) confirmed (B) contested (C) accepted (D) proven	B	Parallel with “which is true” requires a contrast

Blanks 1 and 2 are grammar; 3, 4 and 5 are meaning. This mix is typical: the dropdown version tests both, which is why it scores Writing as well as Reading.

Set 2: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers

Negative marking applies. Select only what you can point to in the text.

Public libraries in many countries have been reclassified in local government accounts from cultural services to community infrastructure. The change is administrative but not trivial: infrastructure budgets are protected in a way that cultural budgets are not, and several authorities that had scheduled branch closures reversed them within two years of the reclassification. Whether the reclassification caused the reversals is contested.

Library use itself continued to change. Book lending fell across the decade while computer use, study space bookings and attendance at organised sessions rose. One consequence is that the traditional measure of a library’s value — items issued — now understates its use, and authorities that still report only issues are reporting decline in services that are busier than before.

Option	Verdict	Reason
(A) Infrastructure budgets receive more protection than cultural budgets.	Correct	Stated directly
(B) The reclassification caused the closure reversals.	Wrong	“is contested” — neither confirmed nor denied
(C) Book lending declined over the decade.	Correct	Stated directly
(D) Items issued now understates how much libraries are used.	Correct	Stated directly
(E) Library visitor numbers have fallen overall.	Wrong	Lending fell; other uses rose. Overall visits are not stated
(F) All authorities have adopted new measures of library use.	Wrong	“authorities that still report only issues” implies the opposite

Three correct and three wrong. Selecting all six scores zero. Option B is the frequent trap: a claim the text names and then explicitly declines to confirm.

Set 3: Reorder Paragraph

A. Displacement is the most persistent of these problems: if a new park attracts joggers who previously ran along the canal, the park has changed where activity happens without changing how much.

B. Health economics offers a partial bridge, estimating avoided treatment costs where a green space demonstrably increases physical activity.

C. The stronger designs therefore compare whole neighbourhoods rather than park users, since the users are self-selected.

D. The chain of inference is long, however, and each link carries an assumption: that the activity is additional, that the association is causal, and that the health system would have borne the cost.

Position	Box	Why
1	B	No backward reference; introduces the method and the inference
2	D	“The chain of inference” refers to B
3	A	“these problems” refers to the assumptions listed in D
4	C	“therefore” follows from the displacement problem in A

Four boxes make three adjacent pairs. Getting two pairs right earns two thirds of the available marks, which is why an attempt always beats leaving the boxes unmoved.

Set 4: Fill in the Blanks, drag and drop

Cities measure tree canopy from above, which means a street of mature planes can (1) ___ higher cover than a park of the same footprint. Aerial imagery is cheap and repeatable but systematically (2) ___ narrow street trees whose crowns are obscured by buildings. Lidar avoids this because it captures height and therefore (3) ___, at ten times the (4) ___.

Word pool: register · volume · undercounts · cost · overstates · expense · registration · height

Gap	Answer	Distractor and why it fails
1	register	registration — wrong part of speech after “can”
2	undercounts	overstates — grammatical, wrong direction
3	volume	height — already used in the sentence
4	cost	expense — right meaning, wrong collocation with “ten times the”

Gap 4 is the lesson: “ten times the cost” is a set phrase and “ten times the expense” is not. Collocation, not meaning.

Set 5: Multiple Choice, Single Answer

When a congested route is widened, journeys previously deterred by delay become worthwhile again, and within a few years the new capacity fills. Studies of urban motorway expansion have repeatedly found traffic growth close to the additional capacity provided, which means the congestion problem returns after the construction cost has already been paid. Public transport investment does not work in the same way, because a fuller train remains a functioning train whereas a fuller road becomes a slower one.

What is the main point of the text?

Option	Verdict
(A) Public transport is cheaper to build than roads.	Wrong — cost comparison not made
(B) Adding road capacity tends to be self-defeating in a way that public transport investment is not.	Correct
(C) Motorway expansion increases traffic beyond the capacity added.	Wrong — “close to”, not “beyond”
(D) Trains become slower as they become fuller.	Wrong — the text says the opposite

Option C is the most dangerous distractor here. It changes one word — “close to” becomes “beyond” — and that single change makes a true statement false.

Strategy per task

Task	Strategy
Fill in the Blanks, dropdown	Decide the part of speech before reading the options; check the preposition after the gap
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers	Point to a line for every selection; ignore how many you have chosen
Reorder Paragraph	Find the box with no backward reference, then chain by pronouns and connectives
Fill in the Blanks, drag and drop	Place the certain gaps first — the pool is shared
Multiple Choice, Single Answer	Answer the stem in your own words before reading the options; always select something

Distractor types across the section

Type	Example above	Defence
One word changed	“beyond” for “close to”	Re-read the exact sentence, not your memory of it
Named but not confirmed	The reclassification caused the reversals	“Is contested” means neither yes nor no
Scope inflation	Library visits have fallen overall	Check what exactly declined
Absolute where the text hedged	All authorities have adopted new measures	Reject all, always, never unless the text uses them
Right meaning, wrong collocation	“ten times the expense”	Say the phrase, not just the word
Comparison not made	Public transport is cheaper to build	Two costs mentioned separately is not a comparison

Time allocation for 23 to 30 minutes

Task	Target	Why
Fill in the Blanks, dropdown	Longest per item	Up to 300 words and it scores two skills
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers	Second longest	Up to 350 words and negative marking rewards care
Multiple Choice, Single Answer	Medium	Up to 300 words but only one answer to find
Reorder Paragraph	Short	110 to 150 words, and partial credit rewards a fast near-correct order
Fill in the Blanks, drag and drop	Shortest	Up to 80 words

Pearson does not publish per-item times for Reading, only the section range, so practise the whole section under 23 to 30 minutes rather than timing individual items.

FAQ

How many Reading task types are in PTE Academic?

Five: Fill in the Blanks with dropdowns, Multiple Choice with multiple answers, Reorder Paragraph, Fill in the Blanks by drag and drop, and Multiple Choice with a single answer. The section runs 23 to 30 minutes.

Where does negative marking apply in PTE Academic Reading?

Only on Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers, where each incorrect selection deducts a mark. Every other Reading task uses partial credit or single-answer scoring with no deduction, so you should answer them all.

What is the difference between the two Fill in the Blanks tasks?

The dropdown version uses a text of up to 300 words with per-gap options and scores both Reading and Writing. The drag-and-drop version uses a text of up to 80 words with a shared word pool and scores Reading only, which is why a wrong placement there can take the word a later gap needs.

Is an imperfect Reorder Paragraph answer worth anything?

Yes. Scoring is on adjacent pairs, so with four boxes there are three pairs and getting two right earns two thirds of the marks. Leaving the boxes unmoved is the only certain zero.

How long should I spend on each Reading task?

Pearson publishes the section time of 23 to 30 minutes but not per-item times, so practise the section as a whole. In relative terms the two longest texts deserve the most time and the 80-word drag-and-drop task the least.

Which Reading tasks are worth practising most?

The dropdown Fill in the Blanks, because it scores both Reading and Writing, and Reorder Paragraph, because the method is learnable and the partial credit means technique translates directly into marks.

Related practice resources