Fill in the Blanks: Drag and Drop — PTE Core Practice Questions

Reading: Fill in the Blanks asks you to drag words from a shared word bank into gaps in a short passage of up to 80 words. Because the bank always holds more words than there are gaps, at least one option is a deliberate distractor, and PTE Core scores each gap on its own so a mistake on one blank never costs you the others.

What this task tests

This task shows a passage of up to 80 words with several gaps, plus a bank of draggable word options. The bank always contains more words than gaps, so some words are never used.

PTE Core includes 4-5 items of this type, the same range as PTE Academic. The two exams also share the same up to 80-word passage limit for this task, unlike most other reading tasks where Core passages are shorter.

Your PTE Core Score Report, and the Reading score this task feeds, must be less than two years old at the time you submit your Express Entry profile and again when you submit the permanent residence application, so plan your test date with that window in mind.

Format and timing

There is no dedicated timer for this task; it shares the Reading section clock, 27 to 37 minutes across all five Core reading task types.

In our experience, eliminating distractors from a shared bank can take longer per gap than choosing from a dropdown menu, so you may want to leave a slightly larger share of your own time budget for it.

How it is scored

Scoring is partial credit: one point for each blank filled with the correct word, with the item floored at 0.

Dragging a distractor word into a gap only costs you that gap's point; every other correctly filled gap still scores, so complete every gap rather than leaving any drag unfinished.

Step-by-step approach

The routine below is our suggested order of work, not an official procedure. Its logic is to settle what each gap needs grammatically before the word bank has a chance to steer you towards a familiar-looking distractor.

• Read the whole passage first, ignoring the word bank, to understand the topic.
• For each gap, decide what part of speech and rough meaning is needed before looking at the bank.
• Scan the bank for words matching that part of speech; rule out words that are clearly the wrong grammatical form.
• Drag your best match, then move to the next gap; you can adjust before finishing.
• Reread the completed passage once at the end to confirm every sentence makes sense.

Example (written by LexiPTE)

Example (written by LexiPTE), not a real exam item. Passage: 'The library will [gap 1] its hours during the exam period. Extra study rooms will also be [gap 2] on the ground floor.' Word bank: extend, extending, available, avail, extension.

For gap 1, 'extend' fits because it follows the modal 'will' and needs the base verb form; 'extending' and 'extension' are wrong forms for this position. For gap 2, 'available' fits as the adjective after 'be'; 'avail' is a verb and cannot follow 'be' in this sentence.

This works because each gap is solved by grammar first, working out what form is needed after 'will' or 'be', and then confirmed by meaning, since a library extending its hours makes sense in context.

Strategies

Most points on this task are lost to distractors from the same word family, so the strategies focus on form before meaning.

• Work out the required part of speech for each gap before scanning the word bank, so distractor words are easier to rule out.
• Watch for word-family distractors that share the same root but the wrong form, such as a noun where a verb is needed.
• Leave genuinely uncertain gaps for a second pass rather than guessing immediately; other gaps may use up the more obvious bank words first.
• Reread the finished passage as a whole, not gap by gap, to catch a wrong word that is grammatically possible but changes the meaning.

Common mistakes

These errors come up repeatedly when candidates review their drag-and-drop attempts.

• Choosing a word because it is left over in the bank rather than because it fits the gap.
• Ignoring word form, such as verb tense or singular versus plural, and focusing only on general topic match.
• Forgetting that not every bank word is meant to be used, and trying to force all of them into gaps.
• Rushing the final reread and missing an inconsistency introduced by an earlier gap.

Practice plan

Build a personal list of word-family distractor patterns you fall for, such as choosing a noun where an adjective was needed, and drill those specifically.

Since the passage length matches PTE Academic for this task, any up to 80-word passage practice trains the same skill; just keep the Core-specific gap-scoring rule in mind when reviewing your results.

This task counts only toward your PTE Core Reading score. IRCC converts Reading to Canadian Language Benchmark levels: CLB 7 needs 60-68, CLB 6 needs 51-59, CLB 5 needs 42-50, and CLB 4 needs 33-41. Federal Skilled Worker and Canadian Experience Class (TEER 0 or 1) applicants need CLB 7 in Reading; Canadian Experience Class (TEER 2 or 3) applicants need CLB 5; Federal Skilled Trades applicants need CLB 4. With 4-5 items on the test, this is one of the higher-volume reading tasks, so it gives you more scored gaps to practise for than a task with only 1-2 items; Pearson does not publish how much each task type is weighted.