Hello everyone hope all of you are doing great. today we'll be discussing about one of the very
important question types in the listening module it's called Fill in the blanks it's an item which
looks really simple and many students ignore it which is not a good idea because it's a really
highly scoring component and people ignore it mainly because it looks really simple
but it needs a lot of your focus and attention even though it's a very simple task your spelling
and word form is very crucial here so a bit of idea about this item type in this item what you do
is you'll be listening to an audio which could be maximum two minutes long usually one two one point
five minutes long and whatever you listen to the audio the script of the same audio would be on the
screen but on the script on the screen some of the words will be missing you will have blanks there
so what you have to do is you will hear those words in the audio so while you listen to the
audio you have to note down those words and type it into the blanks on the script provided on the
screen sounds very simple but it needs a lot of practice and attention because spelling is very
crucial like i already mentioned because even if you write the correct word in the blank but
if the spelling is wrong or if the word form is wrong you would not be getting the points for
points for that particular blank okay so we'll go into detail i'm just giving an intro so first let
me show you how important this question type is like we do for every other question types
so people who is watching the videos out there if you have not watched the other videos please make
sure you watch them i have made more important component videos even before this one so make sure
you watch them there are many questions which are more important than this so make sure you watch
all the components of PTE so you get a clear idea of every item type okay so we are going to talk
about listening fill in the blanks today so let me show you where it stands in the importance table
okay all right so this is the important tables which you might have already seen it in many
other videos as well so as you can see here these are all the 20 types of questions in PTE
arranged according to total marks from highest to lowest which means the items which are on
top will be more important than the ones which are at the bottom so the item type that we are
discussing about today is listening fill in the blanks and this stands somewhere in the middle
which means it's not extremely important it's not less important also it's important i would say
because it carries a total of 14 points out of 14 points it is giving 7.4 points to writing because
you are typing the answer so wherever you type your answer points will be given to your writing
module this is an item in the listening module and in this you have to listen to an audio first
so definitely it is giving six point six points to listening as well it's out of total fourteen
point seven point four points is for writing out of ninety six six point six points out of ninety
90s for writing audio you would be getting two or three equations and where it stands it is i think
the eleventh important component three four five six seven eight nine ten yeah this is the eleventh
important question in pt out of all the 20 items so it's really important okay so this is a sample
screenshot of how the question is gonna look like you will be listening to an audio as you can see
there is a script on the screen all you have to do is the words which are missing in the script
you will be hearing them in the audio so while you hear them you can knot it down and once the audio
is over you can type it over here very simple but again you need to be very careful with your
spelling okay so let me show you where it comes in the listening module so in listening as we have
already mentioned in the other videos we have two sections a total of eight different types
of questions even though we have eight different types of questions in listening only four items
are important the four important items are the most important one right from dictation the last
one in listening second important one is summarize spoken text which is the first item in listening
third important one is highlighting correct words which is the second last item in listening and
the fourth important one is fill in the blanks which is the third item in listening and that's
the one that will be talking about today so out of the eight items of listening there are
only four important ones the remaining four items which are multiple choice choose multiple answer
highlight correct summary multiple choice choose single answer and select missing word are really
low scoring items which makes them less important compared to the other four so again just repeating
what i already mentioned in the other videos your time management is very crucial in listening
because in section two the computer will not be allocating specific time for each task
it'll give you a total time of around 22 to 28 minutes for all questions of section two
so there won't be separate separate timing for each task you have to divide the time for each
task from the total time given depending on the importance of the question which is the reason
why you need to remember what is important what is less important so for the important question types
fill in the blanks highlighting correct words and write from dictation in section two make sure you
have enough time by spending less time on the unimportant question types which is multiple
important or less important multiple choice choose multiple answer highlight correct summary multiple
shows choose single answer and select missing word these four questions should be completed
as soon as possible do not waste too much time on them if you waste too much time on them you
will not be getting enough time for your important question types okay i'll be making another video
in detail how to manage your time this is just about fill in the blanks today okay so fill in the
blanks you will be getting two or three questions each question will have around five blanks in them
and you will be getting it could not need to be five all the time sometimes three sometimes
four sometimes seven depending upon the length of the passage on an average will be getting
five blanks and each blank will be given one point there is no negative marking which is an advantage
which means even if you do not know the answer to a blank it is better not to leave it unattended
give an answer everywhere i would suggest this for every task of pte even if you do not know
the answer to the question don't leave it blank give an answer anyway if it is wrong you will just
get zero there is no negative marking here you're not going to lose the point that you already have
so just give an answer there rather than leaving it blank since there is non-negative marking
and as we already mentioned even if you get the correct word from the audio but if the spelling is
wrong also if the word form is wrong that means they said reviews and you rightly review you
will not get the point like missing s missing e d missing ing you could be still losing points here
even if the basic form of your answer is correct if the word form is wrong you will not be getting
the points for that blank so be very careful with your spelling as well as word form and this item
as we already saw in the table it is contributing points to both listening as well as writing
because first you have to listen to the audio and then you have to type the correct words in
the correct blanks so since you're typing points will be given to writing as well around seven or
six points for listening and writing right now the main there are no strategies here i would
say there are no shortcuts as we say for some other companies there are many shortcuts in other
components but in this there are no shortcuts you can't use any technique here the the way that you
have to approach this question is uh it depends on your skills so some people are really fast
in typing they are faster in typing rather than typing so some people they don't even have to look
at the keyboard to type for them i would suggest just type your answers straight away in the blanks
rather than writing them and then typing on the screen which can save your time as well but
majority of the students that i have taught i've seen that majority of the more than 90 percent of
them their typing is slower than their writing they can write faster than typing on the screen
unless you work with computers every day more students would be in the second grade like second
category you would be writing faster than your typing so my suggestion would be if you are one
of them uh rather than typing directly better to take down knots on your notepad provided because
when you go to the exam they'll be providing you with a notebook and then you don't have to take
it from your side they'll be providing you with one so what you can do is while you listen to
the audio not the words down and once the audio is over you can carefully type it in the blanks
otherwise if you try to type directly while you're typing the first blank the speaker will keep on
speaking and you will miss out the second blank so always a safer option would be to write because
most people are faster in writing unless you are faster in typing just stick to writing and then
typing on the screen later okay now what a few important things to note here once
the question appears on the screen the audio will start playing automatically within around
six to seven seconds so what you're supposed to do during the six to seven seconds is you will
not get enough time to read the entire paragraph at least read the words before and after the blank
so you know where you should listen more because you know the word before the blank so the next
word is what you need so read those words so you can listen more carefully when you hear that word
and always make sure if the blanks are too close together because sometimes they put two blanks
very close to each other so you need to be very careful at that point because if you when if it
is very close when you're writing the first one you might miss out that second one so what you
can do is while you listen to the audio if you have two blanks very close together wait for
both the blanks to be over before you write down otherwise you will miss the second one over there
okay and uh some difficulties faced by students here uh first thing they don't understand the
speaker because in PTE you have different accents mostly native speakers you have australian accent
american accent british accent so some people don't understand some accents that they listen to
so other than practicing for PTE do extra exercise of watching english programs english movies
without subtitles for sure because if you use subtitles as i've already mentioned in the other
videos you're actually reading what is given on the screen you're not listening to the speaker
that is not going to help you with your listening skills so when you watch english programs make
sure you watch without subtitles try watching with the headphones so you can hear them very clearly
and make it a practice every day so gradually your listening skills will improve and you will be able
to understand different accents of different people because in this particular question if
you don't understand the speaker you can you can you cannot do anything about it because you cannot
even get the answer if you don't understand what you have heard okay so first thing is
you need to get used to different native accents so listen to different english programs every day
at least for 30 minutes or one hour and without subtitles and of course practice this question
as much as possible uh i would say a good number would be try to do around 20 questions
in a day because uh what i've seen here is many people they struggle with spelling and word form
it comes it improves only by practice okay so let me do one question with you so you can actually
have a clearer idea of what you're supposed to do here okay all right so as you can see on the
screen there is a script over here so when i play the audio you are going to hear the exact
same thing which is given on the screen just a second so you can also hear what i am saying
here is uh before the audio begins uh i'll just quickly read the script so i know where the
blanks are and once the audio starts playing i have my notebook and pen with me here so
while i listen to those words i'll write it down here once the audio is over i'll type it in the
blanks and then i'll show you the answers okay ready you can also try with me if you want to
we have ignition we have liftoff let's say you've saved up 200 grand for a trip to space with virgin
galactic lucky you but are you healthy enough to fly you'll have to talk with your doctor a new
study in the bmj outlines the role that general practitioners will have to play in commercial
space flight after all astronauts typically have to be in tip-top shape but opening the
door to the paying public means that less healthy individuals will soon have access to space too
and the stress of space flight combined with the negative effects of weightlessness on muscle and
bone could cause real problems it may be up to your personal physician to make the go no-go call
based on your medical history among the potential hypotheticals floated in the bmj study can my
patient with stable angina and a pacemaker for complete heart block participate in a sub-orbital
virgin galactic flight what is the maximum allowable time that my patient with osteoporosis
can spend on a planned vacation at a space hotel there are no official answers yet but the study's
authors note that such questions may be in the air or lack thereof in the not too distant future
if you have noticed what i did here is i am writing down on my notebook but majority of the
time more than 90 of the time my eyes are still on the screen i don't look down on my book so much
because i can write without looking but i should at least look at it for a second so
i can see that the pen is at least working so double check that don't keep your eyes stuck
on the screen completely you need to look down at your knots but mostly keep your eyes on the screen
otherwise you will lose which part that they're reading and if you get lost at one point you'll
miss out all the blanks which is coming after it and as you can see here in this one the first
two blanks are pretty close together so i wrote down the first two in short forms see you need to
remember the notes that you're taking down the examiner will not be looking at your notes the
exam it's evaluated by a computer the computer will only see your final answer which is typed
in the blank cl so when you take down notes you don't have to write the correct spelling you don't
have to write the complete word you just need to use some short forms which will help you remember
like in the second blank here uh the actual answer was commercial i have written only c
o m r c l that i can understand that it is commercial but if i try to write commercial
with the correct spelling here i could be losing my time which i need for the next blind
that's why when you take down not do not try to write completely with the correct spelling and
all that you can do it correctly while you type it on the screen because it saves your time as
well and a very important thing after you type it in double check the spelling of the word and
double check the word form as well now what i'll do i'll just type the answers over here
outlines a new study will have to play in commercial
right and one more thing that you can do to save your time here
if you use the tab button as you can see i'm just clicking on my tab uh tab button
on my keyboard when you click tab the cursor will automatically come to the next blank so you don't
have to move your mouse around to come to the next bank it saves your time just use tab button
space flight and the third one was combined okay now one more thing to remember
let's say you missed a blank here so when you take down not leave a dash there otherwise you
will misplace the word in the wrong blanks because let's say i missed this one and i got the next
word if i do not put a dash in my notes i might write the word which i'm supposed to write here
in the previous flank so if you miss something make sure to leave a dash so you will leave the
blank there rather than typing the next one in the wrong position okay space flight combined
uh on your medical history our blog participate
the planned vacation
all right so now i have typed my answers but i'm not going to rush to the next question immediately
i need to double check my spelling as well as word from here so the first line a new study
in the bmj outlines now if i write out line here this is grammatically wrong because a new a new
study study is singular so for study we need to write outlines for singular noun the word will be
ending with s outlines if it was new studies then we can write outline okay so if i write
outline here i will lose my point we have to play in commercial space flight okay seems good
uh us and the stress and the stress of space fight combined with the negative effects now
let's i write combine here not gonna get the point that's why before you move to the next question
read the entire sentence with the blank so you can make sure it is grammatically correct as well
especially with ed ing s and all those kind of things word for based on your medical history
looks good um can my patient with stable angina underpass make a pacemaker for a complete hard
work hard block participating okay so because can my can he participate if i write participated or
participates here it is grammatically wrong that's why i'm reading the sentence because when you
listen to the audio they may not say the s and e or you may not hear it clearly but by reading the
paragraph you can make sure reading the sentence you can make sure it is grammatically correct by
checking the context spent on a planned vacation so if i read vacations here it's grammatically
wrong because we have written a plan so a vacation let's check the answer and see okay
outlines correct commercial correct combined correct medical correct participate correct
vacation correct so i'll be getting how many points each blank one point one two three four
five six so six out of six so if i write out line here i'll get only 5 out of 6 if i get combined
here i will get only 4 out of 6 so make sure that's why this question it looks really simple
that's why many people don't practice it much but it needs a lot of practice especially because of
word form and spelling so main things to remember here do not try to type directly unless you are
extremely fast in typing it's better to write down on your notepad first and when you write down not
make sure you don't waste time to get the correct spelling or the correct word form because nobody's
going to look at your notes but write it neatly enough so that you can read because that's another
common mistake that many students make they try to write really fast and when they try to look
at their notes they can't even read their own handwriting this also you could lose the point
because you you don't know what you have written out there so what you have right written down on
the notes make sure it is neat and clear legible for you to read after the audio is over carefully
type it in after you type it in first double check the spelling and second step this is what
many students don't do second step most people miss double check the word form by checking
the sentence structure if the send if the word is supposed to be ending with s e d ing double check
with the sentence structure only then move to the next question okay looks relatively
simple but needs practice like i said so i would suggest all of you to practice around 20 of each
fill in the blanks questions in a day 20 fill in the blanks of listening uh and once let's say
you do 10 questions and you get at least eight of them hundred percent correct that's a good
good percentage but let's say you're missing at least one or two blanks in every question that's
not good enough if you're targeting for band seven or band-aid okay so try hard guys practice hard so
i'll be coming up with another video soon uh i think we're gonna do reorder paragraphs next uh
whichever the next important components i'll be doing that and uh keep watching and if it's all
you have any doubts or questions put it in the comments i'll be always answering all of them
and of course if you need one-to-one coaching or online classes wherever you have students
from all over the world if you need classes online classes or one-to-one feedback or corrections or
anything that you need help with PTE reach us on or for three two two six nine eight seven four and
students from out of australia you can reach me on plus six one three four three two two six nine
eight seven four same number all right or you can reach us through our website anyway all good so
keep watching keep waiting for other videos i'll be applauding all of them really soon thank you