Mastering OET Reading Part C: Strategies for Success
OET Reading Part C assesses your ability to understand detailed meaning, opinions, and attitudes in longer healthcare-related texts. You can boost your score in this final section of the OET Reading sub-test regular practice, solid strategies, and ongoing vocabulary learning.
Understanding the OET Reading Part C Format
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Number of texts: 2 longer texts (700–800 words each), typically drawn from healthcare journals, opinion pieces, or professional articles.
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Questions: 8 multiple-choice questions per text (16 in total). Two of these will be 'Lexical' and 'Reference' questions, special types of questions in the OET exam. Click here to watch a popular SET video on these here: Lexical and Reference Questions
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Task: Answer questions that test understanding of main ideas, supporting detail, attitude, and inference.
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Skills assessed: Ability to follow complex arguments, interpret tone and stance, and identify implied meaning.
Effective Strategies for OET Reading Part C
To succeed in this section, apply these strategies:
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Read the questions first: Knowing what to look for helps you focus on key parts of the text.
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Pay attention to tone and attitude: Many questions test whether the writer is positive, negative, or neutral on something. Learn how to read for indirect signals of this.
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Look for evidence and examples: These often support the correct answer and help eliminate distractors.
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Manage your time: You have 45 minutes for Parts B and C together — allocate around 30–33 minutes for Part C.
Improving Your Reading Skills for OET Reading Part C
Build your skills beyond the exam by:
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Reading medical magazines and professional articles: This develops familiarity with the type of texts used in the exam. Here is a great online resource for articles on medical topics that are similar to the exam: The Conversation: Health
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Expanding academic and formal vocabulary: Helps with recognising paraphrases and subtle tone shifts.
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Practising inference skills: Focus on what is implied, not just stated directly. This is something you need to get into a class to practice. SET offer free demonstration classes on Zoom and we very often focus on reading. Sign ups for free classes here: Free OET Classes
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Summarising paragraphs: After reading, practise restating the main idea in your own words. Use ChatGPT to help with this. Being able to summarise a paragraph clearly shows a high level of understanding.
With consistent practice, you’ll be better prepared to identify meaning, opinion, and nuance in challenging texts.
✅ Enroll in Our Free OET Course
Want to master OET? Join our free OET course today. You’ll get:
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Live demonstration classes on Zoom
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Video lessons explaining strategies step by step
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Advice and tips on key parts of the OET Exam