PTE Reading Tips and Tricks 2025: How to Score 90

If you’re finding the PTE Reading section difficult, you are not alone. It is often the “most hated section” for students, who feel stuck no matter how much they practice. They read the same generic advice online – “build your vocabulary,” “read more” – but their score never improves.

Why? Because those guides miss the single biggest secret to the PTE Reading score:

Almost half of your points come from outside the Reading section!

This is not another list of generic tips. This is the definitive guide to the exact strategies we teach our students to score 90 in PTE (or at least score 79+). We will show you where your score really comes from, which questions to focus on (and which to ignore), provide a deep dive into the grammar hacks and strategies for each important task, and give you the time management plan to execute it perfectly.

The Real Source of Your PTE Reading Score (The Full Picture)

The first and most important secret you must understand is that your Reading score isn’t decided in the Reading section alone. The PTE’s integrated scoring system means tasks from other sections contribute massively to your reading total.

Here are the hidden sources of your reading score:

1. PTE Speaking – Read Aloud

Section: Speaking
Impact on Reading Score: Massive.
– This one task can contribute up to 35-40 points to your Reading score, making it the most critical task to master.

We have a detailed blog post below on how to do read aloud correctly:
PTE Speaking: Read Aloud Tips and Tricks (2025): The Ultimate Guide for a 90 Score

2. PTE Writing – Summarize Written Text

Section: Writing
Impact on Reading Score: High.
– Your ability to accurately identify and summarize the main ideas of a passage directly proves your reading comprehension to the scoring system.

3. PTE Listening – Highlight Incorrect Words

Section: Listening
Impact on Reading Score: Medium.
– This task tests your ability to read and listen for discrepancies at the same time, contributing valuable points to your reading total.

4. PTE Listening – Highlight Correct Summary

Section: Listening
Impact on Reading Score: Medium.
– Similar to the above, this task requires you to read and comprehend several paragraphs of text to find the correct summary.

The takeaway here is simple but powerful: your PTE Reading strategy must start by perfecting the tasks that contribute to the total score (from OUTSIDE of reading). A fluent and clear Read Aloud performance is paramount; it can give you more than half the marks you need for a 65 before the Reading section even begins.

If You CAN’T Get 90: Here’s the “2 out of 3” Rule to Score 79 in PTE

You do not need to be perfect at every reading task. You can be terrible at one of the main areas and still score 79 in PTE. The secret is to overcompensate with your strengths. We call this the “2 out of 3” rule.

There are three core task groups that provide the bulk of your marks. You must be excellent at at least two of these three (ideally Read Aloud & Read Aloud, since reorders can be extremely unpredictable):

• Read Aloud Performance (from Speaking)
• Fill in the Blanks (Both types)
• Reorder Paragraphs

If you hate Reorder Paragraphs, your Read Aloud and Fill in the Blanks must be exceptionally strong. Understand your strengths, and focus your practice there.

And for the others:

• Summarize Written Text (easy, when you know the correct strategy)
• Highlight Incorrect Words (easy, just maintain your focus!)
• Highlight Correct Summary (easy, if you know our special trick)

Deep Dive #1: How to Master PTE Fill in the Blanks (FIB)

This is the absolute core of the Reading section. Your ability to solve both “drag and drop” and “drop-down” FIBs will make or break your score.

A Step-by-Step Process for Solving Any FIB

1. Scan for Context: Quickly read the first and last sentences to understand the general topic of the paragraph.
2. Read Out Loud: When you get to a blank, whisper the sentence out loud, trying the different options in the gap. The wrong answers will often “sound” grammatically incorrect, helping you eliminate them.
3. Solve Easy Blanks First (for Drag & Drop): Do not go in order. Solve the blanks you are 100% sure about first. This reduces the number of options for the harder blanks and prevents the “downward spiral” effect of getting the first one wrong.
4. Eliminate, Don’t Guess: If you don’t know the meaning of all four options in a drop-down, first eliminate the ones you know are wrong based on grammar or context. This gives you a 50/50 chance even if you’re unsure.

PTE Reading Grammar Rules (that get you the answer quickly)

• Verb Tenses: Check the other verbs in the sentence. If they are in the past tense (e.g., “researched,” “discovered”), the word in the blank will likely be in the past tense too.
• Singular vs. Plural: Look for keywords. The phrase “one of the” must be followed by a plural noun (e.g., “one of the reasons“). The word “another” must be followed by a singular noun (e.g., “another reason“).
• The Comma Rule: If you see a comma before the blank, the answer is often a “W-word” like which or while. If there is no comma, it’s often a “T-word” like that or this.

PTE Vocabulary Tricks: Think Like an Academic

Choose the Extreme: When comparing two similar adjectives, the PTE often prefers the more extreme version. The answer is more likely to be furious than upset, or exhausted than tired.
Choose the Uncommon: Similarly, choose the less common, more academic word. The answer is more likely to be tremendous than huge, or minuscule than small.

Deep Dive #2: How to Master Reorder Paragraphs

This task tests logic. The goal is not perfection; it’s to find correct pairs of sentences, which is where you get your marks. Consistently finding two out of four pairs is enough for a 79+

• Find the First Sentence: Look for the “standalone” sentence that introduces the main topic. It will not start with pronouns (it, they), contrast words (but, however), or reference words (these, that).
• Find Pairs with Nouns & Pronouns: If one sentence introduces a proper noun (e.g., “A group of scientists discovered…”), the next sentence will likely refer to them with a pronoun (e.g., “They theorized that…”). Find the noun first, then find the pronoun that refers to it.
• Find Pairs with Contrast Words: This is often the easiest pair to find. If you see a sentence starting with But, Yet, or However, find the sentence before it that presents the opposite idea.
• Find Pairs with Chronology: If the text discusses events over time, put them in logical order. Look for dates and time-based words. A special trick is the “so, but, now” sequence; if these three words start three different sentences, they will almost always appear in that chronological order.

Your “No-Fail” PTE Reading TIME MANAGEMENT Plan

You must be strict with your time. Do not waste it on low-value questions like Multiple Choice.

• Reading & Writing Fill in the Blanks: 2.5 to 3 minutes per question
• Multiple Choice Multiple Answers: 60-90 seconds MAXIMUM! Guess one answer and move on if you still don’t know.
• Reorder Paragraphs: 2 to 2.5 minutes per question
• Reading Fill in the Blanks: 2 to 2.5 minutes per question
• Multiple Choice Single Answer: not important, try to get it right if you have time left

By implementing these advanced PTE reading tips and tricks, you can transform your preparation from guesswork into a targeted, strategic plan for achieving the score you need.

Good luck with your preparation!
Alex 🙂

Ready to Master Your PTE Reading Strategy?
Knowing the theory is the first step, but real improvement comes from practice. The most effective way to improve your reading score is to drill the questions that matter with high-quality materials.

The Dream English platform has a question bank of over 1,000+ Fill in the Blank questions and hundreds of Reorder Paragraphs, allowing you to master the patterns and PTE vocabulary needed for a top score.

👉 Access Our Full Bank of Real Exam Questions + AI-Scored Mock Tests at: https://platform.dreamenglish.com.au

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