PTE Academic · Reading
PTE Academic Reading: 5 Task Types
PTE Academic Reading is Part 2 of the test and lasts about 23 to 30 minutes. It has five task types in this order: Reading & Writing Fill in the Blanks, Multiple Choice Multiple Answers, Reorder Paragraphs, Reading Fill in the Blanks, and Multiple Choice Single Answer. All share one part timer.
- Part
- Part 2 of 3
- Time
- About 23–30 minutes, one shared timer
- Task types
- 5
- Item counts
- 5–6, 2–3, 2–3, 4–5 and 2–3 in task order
- Negative marking
- Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers only
How PTE Academic Reading works
The Reading part follows Speaking & Writing. Unlike Part 1, there are no per-item timers: one clock covers the whole part, so you decide how long to spend on each passage. The five task types always appear in the same order, starting with the dropdown fill-in-the-blanks task (5–6 items) and ending with single-answer multiple choice (2–3 items).
Your Reading score also receives contributions from Read Aloud and Summarize Written Text in Part 1, and from integrated listening tasks. Within this part, only Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers uses negative marking, where each wrong choice subtracts a point down to zero for the item.
PTE Academic Reading tasks
Tips that work
- Budget about two minutes per fill-in-the-blanks item so the multiple-choice items at the end are not rushed.
- In the multiple-answer task, only tick options you can point to in the text.
- For Reorder Paragraphs, find the opening sentence first, then link pairs with reference words.
- Build collocation knowledge; it decides most answers in both fill-in-the-blanks tasks.
Questions candidates ask
How long is PTE Academic Reading?
About 23 to 30 minutes, depending on the form you receive.
Which Reading task has negative marking?
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers. The other four Reading task types do not.
Where can I practise all five tasks?
EnglishHub has exam-style practice for each Reading task type, within 200 practice sets, plus 50 full mock tests.
PTE Academic overviewPTE Academic Reading: all partsPTE Academic full mock testsPTE Academic articles on the blog