OET Reading: Parts A, B and C, and how to use the 60 minutes

The OET Reading subtest lasts 60 minutes and has 42 questions across three parts. It is the same paper for every profession: the texts are about healthcare, but they are not specific to nursing, medicine or any other field, so the skill being tested is reading, not clinical knowledge. The three parts test different things, and the time pressure is not spread evenly, which is why a plan for the clock matters as much as reading ability.

The format below is the test at the time of writing. OET publishes the current structure, with full sample papers, at occupationalenglishtest.org, and sitting at least one official sample under timed conditions is the single most useful thing you can do before the real one.

Part A: fast, precise, 15 minutes

Part A gives you four short texts on one topic, such as a condition or a procedure, and 20 questions to answer in 15 minutes. The texts might be a guideline extract, a table, a set of instructions and a short explanatory paragraph. The questions come in three types: matching, where you identify which text contains a piece of information; sentence completion, where you fill a gap with words from the texts; and short answer, where you write a word or short phrase.

The two things that decide Part A are speed and exactness. Fifteen minutes for 20 questions and four texts means you cannot read everything first. Read the questions, scan the texts for the detail asked for, and move on. The answers must be taken from the texts, and spelling counts, so copy the words as they appear rather than paraphrasing. Most lost marks in Part A come from running out of time rather than from misunderstanding, so if a question is taking too long, leave it and come back.

Part B: six short workplace texts, 45 minutes shared with Part C

Part B has six short texts of the kind found in a healthcare workplace: a policy extract, a memo, a set of guidelines, a notice, an email. Each has one multiple-choice question with three options, asking for the main point, the purpose, or a specific detail. Parts B and C share a single 45-minute block, so you decide how long to give each.

Part B texts are short enough to read fully, and the question usually turns on precise wording: what the text says staff must do, versus should do, versus may do. The common mistake is choosing an option that is true in general but is not what this text says. Read the text, then the question, then eliminate the two options the text does not support.

Part C: two long texts, 16 questions, inference

Part C has two longer texts, each around 800 words, with eight multiple-choice questions each and four options per question. The texts are the kind of article a healthcare professional might read in a journal or a professional magazine, presenting a discussion, an argument or a report on research. The questions ask what a writer means, what their attitude is, why a particular example is used, what a phrase refers to, and what the text implies rather than what it states.

This is the part that most tests reading rather than scanning. The questions follow the order of the text, so you can work through each text paragraph by paragraph. Watch for options that use words from the text but change the meaning, and for questions about the writer's opinion where the text reports someone else's opinion. If two options both seem right, the question is probably about a distinction between them that the text makes explicitly, so go back to the sentence.

A plan for the clock

• Part A: 15 minutes, fixed. This section is collected separately, so there is no borrowing time from later. Aim to attempt every question. Unanswered questions score nothing; a quick guess at a matching question sometimes scores.
• Part B: around 10 to 12 minutes. Six short texts and six questions. Do not linger; the marks here are quick to collect.
• Part C: the remaining 33 to 35 minutes. Two texts, 16 marks. Split the time evenly between the two texts and keep a couple of minutes at the end to check you have answered everything.

Those figures are a starting point. Adjust them from your own practice: if you consistently finish Part B in eight minutes, give the time to Part C.

Where the marks are

All 42 questions are worth one mark. Part A contributes 20, Part B six, and Part C 16. The raw total is converted to the 0 to 500 scale. A candidate who does well in Part A and Part C and loses a few in Part B is in a good position; a candidate who runs out of time in Part A has lost nearly half the paper before Part B begins, which is why Part A speed is the first thing to practise.

Practising Reading

Timed practice is the whole of it. Untimed reading improves vocabulary and comfort with the text types, but the skill the test measures is reading accurately under time pressure, and that only comes from sitting full parts against the clock. Clodia's Reading tests follow the three-part structure with the real timings, mark Part A with the same exact-word rule the real paper uses, and show which question types you drop marks on across attempts, so you know whether to spend next week on Part A scanning or Part C inference.

The sample papers on occupationalenglishtest.org are official. Sit them, under exam conditions, before your test date.