Free PTE Core Reading and Writing Fill in the Blanks

PTE Core Reading and Writing Fill in the Blanks: dropdown questions, answer keys explaining every distractor, and the grammar rules behind each blank.

Lume Test

Sep 4, 2026

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5 min read

Free PTE Core Reading and Writing Fill in the Blanks

Key Takeaways

PTE Core Reading and Writing Fill in the Blanks: dropdown questions, answer keys explaining every distractor, and the grammar rules behind each blank.

Reading and Writing: Fill in the Blanks is a Part 2 task. You get a text of up to 200 words with several gaps, and each gap has a dropdown of four options. It scores both Reading and Writing, which makes it one of the highest-value tasks per minute in PTE Core.

It is marked with partial credit: each blank is scored separately, so getting three of four right earns three quarters of the marks. Never leave a dropdown unselected.

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Key Takeaways

Text up to 200 words with dropdown gaps; scores both Reading and Writing.
Partial credit per blank — always select something in every dropdown.
Two decision types: grammar (which form fits) and collocation (which word partners the neighbour).
Read the whole sentence, then the sentence before it. Some blanks depend on the previous sentence.
Do not read the four options before you have decided what kind of word the gap needs.

How the task works

Element	Detail
Text length	Up to 200 words
Gaps	Several, each with a dropdown of four options
Skills scored	Reading and Writing
Scoring	Partial credit — one mark per correct blank
Part	Part 2, Reading

The two decision types

Type	What the options look like	Decide by
Grammar	Four forms of one word, or four tenses, or four prepositions	The structure around the gap
Collocation	Four different words of the same part of speech	Which one partners the neighbouring word

Look at the options only after deciding what part of speech the gap needs. Reading the options first is how candidates talk themselves into a plausible wrong answer.

Practice text 1: workplace training (5 blanks)

Employers have become considerably more willing to fund training than they were a decade ago, though the reasons are less altruistic than they appear. The (1) ___ driver is retention: staff who receive training stay longer, and replacing an experienced employee costs several times the price of a course. A second factor is the speed at which technical skills now (2) ___, which means a workforce hired five years ago may lack capabilities that did not exist when they were recruited.

There is, however, a persistent gap between what companies fund and what employees ask for. Firms prefer training that is specific to their own systems, because it (3) ___ immediately to productivity. Employees tend to prefer transferable qualifications, which are more valuable precisely because they are portable. This tension (4) ___ for the fact that so much corporate training is compulsory rather than requested, and it also explains why take-up of voluntary schemes is often (5) ___ than the budget assumes.

Blank	Options	Answer	Why
1	(A) prime (B) principal (C) major (D) primary	D	“primary driver” is the standard collocation; the others are grammatical but not idiomatic here
2	(A) date (B) age (C) expire (D) lapse	B	“skills age” is the collocation; expire and lapse take licences and permissions, not skills
3	(A) contributes (B) attributes (C) distributes (D) constitutes	A	contribute to productivity; the preposition confirms it
4	(A) accounts (B) counts (C) explains (D) amounts	A	“accounts for the fact that” — explains would need no preposition
5	(A) low (B) lower (C) lowest (D) lowly	B	“than” forces a comparative

Blanks 3 and 4 are decided by the preposition that follows, not by meaning. Reading two words past the gap resolves both.

Practice text 2: urban delivery (5 blanks)

The growth of home delivery has changed the traffic mix in city centres in ways that planners did not anticipate. Vans now (1) ___ for a larger share of vehicle movements than private cars in some districts, and because they stop frequently and unpredictably, their effect on traffic flow is (2) ___ greater than their numbers suggest.

Several cities have (3) ___ consolidation centres on the edge of the controlled zone, where parcels from multiple carriers are combined and delivered by a single vehicle. The engineering is straightforward; the difficulty is commercial, since carriers compete on delivery speed and are reluctant to (4) ___ the final leg to a shared operator.

Where consolidation has worked, it has usually been because the local authority made access to the zone (5) ___ on using the shared service, rather than because carriers chose to cooperate.

Blank	Options	Answer	Why
1	(A) count (B) account (C) stand (D) make	B	“account for a share” is the fixed collocation
2	(A) considerable (B) considerably (C) consideration (D) considered	B	An adverb is needed to modify “greater”
3	(A) established (B) establishing (C) establishment (D) establishes	A	“have” requires the past participle
4	(A) hand over (B) hand in (C) hand out (D) hand down	A	hand over = transfer responsibility; the others mean submit, distribute and pass to a successor
5	(A) dependent (B) depending (C) dependence (D) depended	A	“make X dependent on Y” is the pattern

Practice text 3: the office lease market (4 blanks)

Commercial landlords spent much of the last decade assuming that demand for office space would recover to its previous level. That assumption now looks (1) ___, and the market has begun to divide rather than recover. Buildings with good transport links and recent refurbishment are letting at or above previous rents, (2) ___ older stock in secondary locations struggles to let at all.

The consequence is that headline vacancy figures (3) ___ a market that no individual building is in. A single average conceals two quite different markets, and lenders who priced their portfolios against that average are now (4) ___ to revalue.

Blank	Options	Answer	Why
1	(A) optimist (B) optimistic (C) optimism (D) optimistically	B	“looks” is a linking verb and takes an adjective
2	(A) despite (B) whereas (C) however (D) in spite of	B	A clause follows, and the relationship is contrast within one sentence
3	(A) describe (B) prescribe (C) subscribe (D) inscribe	A	Only “describe” fits the meaning; the others are near-homographs
4	(A) obliged (B) obligation (C) obligatory (D) obliging	A	“are obliged to revalue” — passive plus infinitive

Blank 2 is the standard connector question. “However” cannot join two clauses inside one sentence, and “despite” and “in spite of” cannot take a clause at all.

The grammar rules that decide most blanks

Signal around the gap	Gap needs	Example
Article or possessive before it, noun after it	Adjective	the primary driver
Article before it, nothing after it	Noun	the completion of the work
Preposition before it	Noun or gerund	without warning / after reviewing
have / has / had before it	Past participle	have established
is / are / was / were before it	Past participle or adjective	are obliged
Linking verb (look, seem, appear, become)	Adjective	looks optimistic
Comparative adjective after it	Adverb	considerably greater
“than” anywhere in the sentence	Comparative	lower than expected
A full clause after it, at the start of a clause	Conjunction	whereas older stock struggles
A noun phrase after it, at the start	Preposition	despite the delay

Collocations that appear in this task

Collocation	Common wrong option offered
account for a share	count for / stand for
contribute to productivity	attribute to / distribute to
the primary driver	the prime driver / the principal driver
skills age	skills expire / skills lapse
hand over responsibility	hand in / hand out / hand down
make X dependent on Y	make X depending on Y
pose a risk	make a risk / give a risk
meet a requirement	fill a requirement / answer a requirement
raise concerns	rise concerns
bear the cost	carry the cost / hold the cost

Method for each blank

Read the whole sentence containing the gap, and the sentence before it.
Decide what part of speech the gap needs, before looking at the options.
Look two words past the gap. A preposition there often decides the answer on its own.
Check for “than” anywhere in the sentence — it forces a comparative.
If two options are the same part of speech and both fit grammatically, it is a collocation question. Say each pairing aloud in your head.
Select something in every dropdown. Partial credit means an unselected gap is a guaranteed lost mark and a guess is not.

What loses marks

Error	Fix
Leaving a dropdown unselected	Partial credit — always choose
Reading the options before analysing the gap	Decide the part of speech first
Reading only the words immediately either side	Read the full sentence; connectors depend on the whole clause
Choosing by meaning when the question is grammar	Four forms of one word means position decides, not meaning
Choosing by grammar when the question is collocation	Four different words means the partnership decides
Spending too long on one gap	Each gap is one mark; move on and come back

FAQ

How is PTE Core Reading and Writing Fill in the Blanks scored?

With partial credit, one mark per correct blank, and it contributes to both your Reading and Writing scores. Because each gap is scored independently, an unselected dropdown is a certain lost mark while a guess still has a chance.

How long is the text?

Up to 200 words, with several dropdown gaps. It is shorter than the Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers text (up to 275 words), which is part of why it is efficient to work carefully rather than quickly.

What is the difference between this and Reading Fill in the Blanks?

This task gives you dropdown options for each gap and scores both Reading and Writing. The Reading-only Fill in the Blanks task uses a shorter text of up to 80 words and asks you to drag words into the gaps from a shared list, which means wrong choices can cascade.

Should I read the options first?

No. Decide what part of speech and what meaning the gap needs from the sentence, then look at the options. Reading four plausible words first tends to override your own analysis.

How do I tell a grammar blank from a collocation blank?

Look at the options. Four forms of one word, four tenses or four prepositions is a grammar blank decided by structure. Four different words of the same part of speech is a collocation blank decided by which one partners the neighbouring word.

Is there negative marking on this task?

No. Negative marking in PTE Core applies to the Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers tasks in Reading and Listening and to Highlight Incorrect Words, where an incorrect selection deducts a mark. Fill in the Blanks uses partial credit with no deduction, so guessing is always correct strategy here.