3. OET Reading Strategies Part C

* Part C Reading Strategy

The best strategy to use for Part C is similar to that for Part B:

Read the first question of Text 1 and underline or circle the key words.

1. Based on the key words in the question, go to the relevant part of the Text. In many cases, you will be told which paragraph to go to in the first question, so the paragraph number will be one of your key words.
2. Scan the relevant section of the Text for any of the key words you found in the first question. This will lead you to the part of the text that contains the relevant information for that question.
3. Once you have found the relevant section of the Text, check each answer option according to the information in the text. Do not simply select the first answer you see that looks correct – there may be a better answer further down the list of options.

Since there are 2 texts to read and answer questions, it is recommended that you divide up your time to manage it effectively:

• Spend no more than about 15 minutes answering questions about Text 1.
  After 15 minutes, move on to Text 2. There may be easier questions further along that you won’t have a chance to answer if you spend all your time on Text 1.
• Spend no more than 15 minutes answering questions about Text 2.
• Aim to finish Parts B and C with at least 5 minutes to spare. This is for checking your answers and returning to questions that you didn’t have time to complete.

* HOW TO PREPARE FOR OET2 READING PART C?

1. Expand Your Vocabulary

Since the focus of Part C is language comprehension (understanding), it is again very important to increase your English vocabulary before the test.

2. Practice Reading for Opinions/Attitudes

There is a strong focus in Part C on testing whether candidates can accurately identify the opinions or attitudes of the author, as well as other people mentioned in each text.

Therefore, when you are doing a practice test or reading any other text for study purposes, you should write down at least 1-5 points about the opinions or attitudes expressed in the text. The exact number of points you write down will depend on the length and content of the text.

Remember that not all opinions or attitudes are stated explicitly. Implicit information is either unstated, or expressed indirectly.

To practice identifying an implicit point in a passage of text, you can use the following method:

1. Read the passage of text
2. Ask yourself: “What do each of the details of the passage have in common?”
3. In your own words, find the common theme among all the details of the passage and the author’s point about this theme.
4. Write a short sentence stating the theme and what the author says about it.

The following passage from demonstrates an example of this process:

“When you’re with your friends, it’s okay to be loud and use slang. They’ll expect it and they aren’t grading you on your grammar. When you’re standing in a boardroom or sitting for an interview, you should use your best English possible, and keep your tone suitable to the working environment. Try to gauge the personality of the interviewer and the setting of the workplace before cracking jokes or speaking out of turn. If you’re ever in a position to speak publicly, always ask about your audience, and modify your language, tone, pitch and topic based on what you think the audience’s preferences would be. You’d never give a lecture about atoms to children!

What do the details in the passage have in common?

In this case, the author is writing about hanging out with friends, going on an interview, and speaking publicly, which, at first glance, don’t seem to relate to each other that much.

If you find a common theme among all them, though, you’ll see that the author is giving you different situations and then telling us to speak differently in each setting (use slang with friends, be respectful and quiet in an interview, modify your tone publicly).

The common theme is speaking situations, and the author’s opinion about it is “different situations require different ways of speaking”. Therefore, the implicit point is: “different situations require different ways of speaking”.

3. Improve Your Grammar

Studying English grammar will help you to accurately answer the two lexical reference questions for each text in Part C.

It is also important to be able to use English correctly to perform well in the other Sub tests of the OET.

This part of preparation is especially important for candidates who have not formally studied English before, or not for a long time (e.g. studied some English in school but not since).