PTE Academic Test Reading Fill In The Blanks Tips & Tricks

Fill in the blanks – In this, a paragraph is given with empty blanks and you have to choose from the words given to you and writing marks are also awarded from this section.

PTE Academic Test Reading Fill In The Blanks Tips & Tricks

But how do we solve these, the techniques include – Skim the whole paragraph and find out a general idea about the topic. Just spend five to ten seconds, not more than that. Read the sentence with blank in it and look at the options. Pick up the right one straight away. If you know the answer, just pick up the word. And if you don’t start excluding the words based on grammar as well as vocabulary. If you know the meaning of those particular words and grammar, just start excluding the words and then choose from the remaining options.

How can we do this? Let’s see one example –

“A charge often leveled against organic agriculture is that it is more philosophy than science. There’s some truth to this indictment, if that is what it is, though why organic farmers should feel ________ about it is itself a mystery, a relic, perhaps, of our fetishism of science as the only ________ tool with which to approach nature. The philosophy of ________ natural processes precedes the science of understanding them.”

In the first blank – we have a general idea that here we’ll feel some emotion – happy, sad, scared about it. So like this, first take a general idea and then look out for the options.

“Options are – supportive, mimicking, logic, repeating, credible, defensive”

After reading the options, read the paragraph again.

For the first blank, “mimicking, logic, repeating, credible” are wrong, so we are left with “supportive and defensive”. If the organic farmers feel supportive, then it shouldn’t be a mystery. So they must have felt defensive, though what organic farmers should feel defensive about it. Defensive about organic agriculture, it is itself a mystery.

For the second blank, again start excluding the words “supportive tool – no, mimicking tool – no, logic tool – no, repeating tool – no, credible tool – yes, this is correct, defensive tool – no”. So we are left only with one word “credible” tool with to approach nature.

For the third blank, “supportive, logic, credible and defensive are wrong options”, mimicking natural process, yes this can be correct and repeating the natural process, yes this can be grammatically correct. We are left with two words mimicking and repeating, both of these are grammatically correct. But now let’s know the meaning of these two words. First, is repeating the natural process. Can we repeat a natural process suppose it’s raining, now can we repeat the raining, no we can mimic it? We can mimic a natural process because we can’t repeat it. If you know the meaning of mimicking and repeating, you can easily pick the correct one which is mimicking. So this is how we’ll choose the blanks but the important thing is after choosing the blanks doesn’t matter, if they are right or wrong. What you need to do is “Know the meanings”. Read the paragraph and just try to know the meaning of other words.

For example, “A charge often leveled”, so leveled, so how this word “leveled” is used in this sentence and what’s the meaning of this, so you need to look for it on the google or in the dictionary. There is some truth to this indictment, what does this indictment mean? Again you need to look for the meaning. What’s “relic”, “fetishism”, “precedes”, so look for the meanings and then look for the meanings of the words as well from the options? Like what’s supportive, mimicking, repeating, credible. So this is how you can solve PTE reading fill in the blanks section.