As you already know, the PTE exam is taken by candidates who wish to get admission to colleges in other countries or want to settle abroad. Today, more than 3,000 colleges, institutions, and professional bodies trust PTE to verify their students’ English skills. So today, we will be looking into the in-depth analysis of one of the tasks of the PTE exam: Reading section, that is, Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer. You will know about different facts about the PTE: Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer.
This just doesn’t end here. You will get to know the super strategy to solve and prepare for the Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer task of the Reading section.
PTE Reading Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer Overview
So now let me tell you in detail how to solve the task of Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer, which is the first question type of the Reading section. What you have to do is you will have to read the text. Then answer a multiple-choice question on the content of the text by selecting one response out of the given options. NOTE: This task will contribute only to the reading score, not any of the other PTE sections.
Wondering why this task is there in the exam? This task is to assess your reading skills. Additionally, your ability to analyze, interpret and evaluate a short reading text on an academic subject word. You can answer only when you will be able to read and analyze the text correctly. There are only 1-2 questions asked in the exam, and the length of the text is about 300 words. These texts are relatively simple and easy to understand.
Time Management
If you are preparing for the PTE exam, you must certainly be aware of how time plays the most crucial role. So you will precisely spend not more than 1 minute 30 seconds on this task. Your answer will be either correct or incorrect. There is no chance of any partial response as you choose from among the given options in the exam.
PTE Reading Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer Layout
I guess that is enough of talking. Now, let me show you what the question actually looks like in an actual exam.
This is the structure of Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer. On your left-hand side, you will have the text you will read. On the right-hand side, you will first have the task prompt for the exam and then a question prompt below. You will not have any heading in this task as Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer. After reading the task prompt, you will get an idea of the type of question. Proceeding further, there will be options at the end that you will choose.
PTE Reading Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer Tips & Tricks
Though the question looks rather easy, you need to follow some tricks and trips to solve the question within the given time limit.
Tips
Before reading the passage, read the question. When reading the text, you are given, reading the question will help you keep track of what you need. Consequently, you will not miss the essential parts of the text.
Secondly, there is one correct answer. There may be more than one answer that fits the question and answer. Nevertheless, that is not correct. You must read the text again to determine which answer is most appropriate.
Start by eliminating answers that are not correct if you are unsure of the right answer. You should be able to eliminate at least one or more answers that are not correct if you look at the question and the answers and don’t know which is the correct answer. That way, you have a better chance of getting the answer right.
Tricks
Finally, answer all the questions. If you have no idea how to answer a question, do not leave it blank. Instead of picking an answer you know is not true, discard the ones you know are false. It is possible that you will not be able to answer the question correctly, but if you do not at least try, you will get the answer wrong.
So by far, you must have got an idea about what Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer is all about. You saw what it looks like in the actual exam and how to approach the question to get a suitable answer.
Now, I will tell you what strategy to prepare to solve this question more efficiently. Learn it step by step.
PTE Reading Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer Strategy
Step 1- Read the question prompt and identify what is needed
What most candidates do is start with reading the text. But that is the wrong technique to solve the question. It will be a waste of time and nothing else. So, instead of starting with the text, begin with the question prompt which will give you the required focus. Try to identify what you need for the answer. The question could be asking you about a specific detail, the author’s opinion, his attitude/ feeling, the central idea of the passage, or inference. Be watchful of what has been asked and prepare to read accordingly.
Step 2- Read answer options and connect to the question
The next step is to quickly go through the answer options and try to connect to the question. In this sample question, you can see that there is a question. Go through it and try to find its relation with the given options. The highlighted keywords will tell you to look for something that is an ‘indicator’ of ‘climate change in ‘Australia.’
Step 3- Read the text thoroughly
After reading the question prompt, you will come to this step, where you will read the text attentively. When you prepare for the exam, you will need to have a lot of reading practice. Try reading English newspapers to learn to derive the main idea quickly from a given passage. You need to read the passage thoroughly to locate the answer if it is asking for specific detail. For other types of questions, you need to read the whole text and then answer accordingly. For example, for ‘main idea’ type questions, you need to understand the whole passage and identify what the central theme is.
Step 4- Eliminate impossible answers in Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer
Moving on to the next step, which is to eliminate the impossible answers. What this means is, that some of the answer options given will not make sense, so eliminate them straight away. For example, after reading the above text, you can figure out that the first option may be correct. The second option is implausible to be correct. The third option, gas emissions, cannot be right because it is not an indicator of climate change. Not sure of the fourth one. And the fifth one is most likely to be correct, as it has been in the news recently.
Step 5- Choose the correct answer
After eliminating the impossible answers, you will have one or two shortlisted options remaining, from which you need to select the best answer. We saw that the last option is most likely the answer in the previous step.
So, by combining these steps, you can easily figure out what the best answer is. You need to practice these steps/strategies on a lot of practice questions, and you will certainly get better every day.
PTE Reading Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer Practice Questions:
In the PTE Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer, there is a possibility of different types of questions that can be asked in the exam. Let me show it in brief.
Opinion
The question prompt can be to ask an opinion. For example, What is the author’s opinion about XYZ? Here is what you can get in such a type of question.
Attitude
It must also ask about the perspective of the writer. Like, How does the writer feel about XYZ?
Theme/ Main idea/ Topic/ Purpose
There can be a question asking What is the main idea of the passage?
Detail
A question might be there to answer in particular, like, What does XYZ mean? According to the text/ passage, the ABC does not do something because of XYZ.
Inference
There can also be a question asking for a conclusion. For instance, What does the author mean by XYZ?. This type of question can be rather tricky. You must be thinking, why so? It is just a conclusion of the text. See what the difficult part is that the answer is not said explicitly. You will have to figure out the implicit meaning of the given options.
PTE Reading Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer FAQS
I see a number of questions are asked by the candidates regarding Multiple choice, Single Answers. Now here’s what the most common of them are. Take a look at it.
Q. What does infer mean?
Ans: Infer means to conclude from something. Suppose you are given a text, then you are asked what you infer from it. It refers to the conclusion you draw by reasoning the given facts and evidence. What can we understand from the text, hidden meaning
Q. How much time is to spend on MCSA?
Ans: Since the PTE tests, or any such kind of test is very particular about the time. So you will have to be very calculative in dividing the given time among all the tasks of different sections. Likewise, here you need to spend 1 minute 30 secs precisely.
Q. How to improve reading?
Ans: As I always say, Practice is the key! You need to read a lot of websites, articles and good English novels to improve your vocabulary. This is not just one day task. But you need to do it every day, on a regular basis.
Q. How to get more confident in PTE Reading?
Ans: For this, I must suggest that you should follow the suggested strategies. I have already said it, and will say it again Practice, practice, and practice!
PTE Reading Multiple Choice Choose Single Answer Mistakes to Avoid
- Relying too much on Repeated Questions. Don’t do that, instead focus on building your skills.
- Manage your time properly. It is extremely important to manage your time well for this question type as well as the overall PTE Reading section.
- Guessing the answers blindly. Select the answer which you feel is the best, but do some thinking before doing that, don’t guess blindly.
- Leaving the question unanswered. This question has no negative marking, so even if you don’t know the answer, give your best shot.
- Master the Strategy and steps. Do a lot of practice questions using the strategy and steps suggested to do well in this task.
What next?
After reading the article, I think you need to do only one thing, that is to implement the tips and tricks while you prepare for the exam. Following the success strategy will make you entirely ready for taking the exam. Hence, don’t wait anymore. Enroll yourself in the Edutrainex online training platform and make the most of our exciting features available.
Watch the video below to learn about the overview of this question type.
