OET Reading Part C practice test (free, with answers)

How to use this test

Start the timer. Read questions 27–34 first, then text 1.
Choose A, B, C or D for each question, then do text 2 (questions 35–42).
Press Check my answers to see your mark, the paragraph that proves each answer and why the other options are wrong.

35:00A practice split, not an OET rule: in the test Parts B and C share 45 minutes.

Questions 27–34

Text 1: Social prescribing – remedy or distraction?

¶1When Margaret Ellison's GP suggested she join a community gardening group, the 74-year-old widow assumed she was being politely dismissed. She had come in, for the fourth time in two months, with vague chest discomfort that repeated tests had failed to explain. 'I thought, she's had enough of me,' Ellison recalls. Eighteen months later, she runs the group's seed-swap stall and has not booked an unscheduled appointment since. Her experience is the kind of story that advocates of social prescribing like to tell, and the kind that sceptics say tells us very little.

¶2Social prescribing, in its simplest form, means referring patients to non-medical sources of support: walking groups, debt advice, art classes, volunteering. The key figure in most models is the link worker, a non-clinical staff member who meets the patient, often several times, to find out what matters to them and to connect them with local services. The idea itself is not new. GPs have long scribbled the number of a bereavement group on the back of a prescription. What has changed over the past decade is that it has been formalised, most visibly in England, where link workers have been funded within primary care networks since 2019. Australia has been slower, relying largely on short-term pilots.

¶3For Dr Priya Raman, a GP in suburban Melbourne who helped design one of those pilots, the case is straightforward. 'Around a fifth of the consultations I see are driven mainly by social problems – isolation, housing, money,' she says. 'I can't fix those with a fifteen-minute appointment and a script. Somebody needs the time to sit with the patient, and that somebody doesn't need a medical degree.' In her practice's two-year pilot, patients who saw a link worker made, on average, 27 per cent fewer GP visits in the following year than in the year before.

¶4Figures like these are precisely what worry Professor Alan Whitcombe, a health services researcher who has reviewed much of the published literature. 'Almost all of the evaluations are before-and-after studies without a comparison group,' he says. 'People tend to see their GP when they are at their worst, and over time many of them would improve anyway. That alone can produce an impressive-looking fall in attendance.' This phenomenon, known as regression to the mean, is a familiar trap in health research, and Whitcombe argues that enthusiasts have largely ignored it. The handful of controlled trials that do exist, he notes, have found modest effects on wellbeing and little consistent change in the use of health services.

¶5Whitcombe is careful not to dismiss the idea altogether. 'I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm saying we don't yet know who it works for, and that matters when money is tight.' Raman accepts the criticism up to a point, but believes it holds social prescribing to an unfair standard. 'Nobody demands a randomised trial before we refer someone to a physiotherapist,' she says. 'And some of the outcomes that matter most, like whether a person feels part of their community again, are hard to capture in the measures researchers favour.'

¶6Among GPs themselves, opinion is divided less on the principle than on the practicalities. Dr Tom Hadley, who practises in a regional town in New South Wales, supports the concept but questions whether it can work where he lives. 'You can only prescribe what exists,' he says. 'In a city there might be twenty groups to choose from. Here, a link worker would spend most of her time discovering there's nothing to link people to.' Others worry that referral could become a way of moving patients on without addressing underlying medical problems, a risk Raman acknowledges. 'A link worker is an addition to good clinical care,' she says, 'never a substitute for it.'

¶7Funding remains the sticking point. Most Australian schemes depend on grants of two or three years, and several have closed just as they were becoming established. Link workers on short contracts leave, and the relationships with community groups that took years to build disappear with them. Meanwhile, the voluntary organisations that receive the referrals are rarely paid for the extra demand. 'There's an assumption that the community sector will simply absorb it,' says Linda Moretti, who coordinates a network of neighbourhood houses in Adelaide. 'We had a walking group that went from eight people to forty in a year. That's wonderful, but someone had to train the extra volunteers, and it wasn't the health system.'

¶8What seems clear is that the future of social prescribing will not be settled by stories like Margaret Ellison's, however compelling. Whitcombe would like to see a large trial with a proper control group and longer follow-up; Raman would settle for funding that outlasts a single electoral cycle. Both, perhaps, are asking for the same thing: the chance to find out properly. Ellison, for her part, is untroubled by the debate. 'All I know,' she says, 'is that I stopped thinking about my chest once I had something else to think about.'

Questions 35–42

Text 2: Thinking about thinking in the emergency department

¶1The man in cubicle 6 had been labelled before he arrived. The ambulance handover described a 52-year-old 'known to the department', smelling of alcohol, who had fallen at a bus stop. Over the next four hours he was reviewed twice, given intravenous fluids and left to sleep it off. It was only when a nurse starting the night shift noticed that one of his pupils was larger than the other that a CT scan was ordered. It showed an acute subdural haematoma. He survived after emergency surgery, but the case, described here with identifying details changed, has become a teaching example in the hospital where it happened.

¶2Diagnostic error, broadly defined as a missed, wrong or delayed diagnosis, is now recognised as one of the largest and least visible sources of harm in healthcare. Estimates vary widely depending on how errors are counted, but studies of emergency departments commonly suggest that a small percentage of patients leave with a diagnosis that later proves to be wrong, and that a fraction of those are seriously harmed. Spread across millions of attendances a year, even low rates translate into substantial numbers of people. Unlike a medication error, however, a missed diagnosis rarely produces an incident report; often nobody, including the clinician, ever learns that it happened.

¶3Much of the recent attention has focused on the way clinicians think. Dr Helen Adeyemi, an emergency physician who teaches clinical reasoning, points out that experienced doctors rely heavily on rapid pattern recognition. 'Most of the time that's exactly what you want. It's how an expert spots sepsis from across the room,' she says. 'The trouble is that the same shortcut that makes us fast also makes us vulnerable.' The man in cubicle 6, she argues, is a textbook example of anchoring: once the first impression of intoxication had formed, each later finding was interpreted to fit it rather than to test it. Closely related is premature closure, accepting a diagnosis before it has been fully verified, which in her view is 'the most expensive habit in emergency medicine'.

¶4One proposed remedy is the diagnostic checklist. Some departments now prompt clinicians, before discharge or when a plan changes, to ask a short set of questions: What else could this be? Does anything not fit? What is the worst thing it could be, and have I excluded it? Adeyemi's own department introduced such a prompt two years ago for patients presenting with falls, headache or reduced consciousness. 'It takes thirty seconds,' she says, 'and it gives people permission to doubt.' An internal review found that requests for senior review rose after the change, although she concedes that the department has not been able to show a fall in missed diagnoses.

¶5Not everyone is convinced that correcting clinicians' thinking is the answer. Professor Mark Bergstrom, who researches patient safety, regards much of the literature on bias as 'intellectually attractive but practically thin'. Experimental studies, he notes, have struggled to show that teaching clinicians about biases makes them less susceptible to them. 'Knowing the name of a bias doesn't stop you having it, any more than knowing about optical illusions stops you seeing them,' he says. In his view, many errors blamed on faulty thinking are better explained by gaps in knowledge, missing information or simple overload: a doctor responsible for too many patients at once may close a case early not because of a bias, but because she has no choice.

¶6Bergstrom would rather see effort directed at the system around the clinician, such as staffing levels, access to previous records and reliable follow-up of test results, than at the clinician's mind. Adeyemi does not see the two approaches as competing. 'Of course workload matters. An exhausted doctor is a biased doctor,' she says. 'But you will never staff an emergency department so well that nobody ever takes a shortcut.'

¶7Where the two agree is on feedback. Emergency clinicians are unusual in that they rarely find out what happened to their patients after they leave the department. A patient discharged with musculoskeletal chest pain who is admitted to another hospital with a heart attack two days later may never come to the original doctor's attention. Without that information, says Bergstrom, 'confidence and accuracy drift apart, and nobody notices'. A few hospitals have begun sending clinicians automatic summaries of unplanned re-attendances and changes in diagnosis, presented as learning rather than blame. Early reports suggest that staff value them, though some find the first few messages uncomfortable reading.

¶8That discomfort may be the real obstacle. In a profession that prizes decisiveness, admitting uncertainty can feel like weakness, and junior staff may hesitate to question a senior colleague's working diagnosis. In the case of the man in cubicle 6, it was a nurse who saw that something did not fit and, crucially, felt able to say so. 'The checklist didn't save him,' Adeyemi says. 'A culture in which someone was willing to speak up did. Our job is to make that the normal thing to do, not the brave thing.'

Answers and explanations

These questions are Part C of our Reading Test 1. Once you have seen the answers here, treat that full test as practice; for a fresh estimate of where you stand, take Reading Test 2.

Show all 16 answers with the paragraph that proves each one

27D introduce a kind of evidence whose value is itself disputed in the debate. Text 1 · paragraph 1

“Her experience is the kind of story that advocates of social prescribing like to tell, and the kind that sceptics say tells us very little.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Link workers and finding out 'what matters' to patients appear in paragraph 2. Ellison's referral came from her GP, and no link worker is mentioned in her story.
- B She attended often and has not booked an unscheduled appointment since. However, the writer presents this as a story that sceptics say 'tells us very little', not as proof of reduced attendance.
- C Her chest discomfort was unexplained, and Raman later links consultations to isolation. The writer, though, does not draw any general conclusion about unexplained symptoms from Ellison's case.
28B It has shifted from an informal GP habit to a formal service, especially in England. Text 1 · paragraph 2

“GPs have long scribbled the number of a bereavement group on the back of a prescription. What has changed over the past decade is that it has been formalised, most visibly in England”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Both countries are mentioned, but the writer says 'Australia has been slower, relying largely on short-term pilots'.
- C Activities such as walking groups and art classes are listed, but the writer says the change is formalisation, not a change in the activities offered.
- D The text describes a non-clinical role. It does not say the service depends on clinically qualified staff making assessments; no conclusion is drawn about each worker’s personal qualifications.
29C They can spend time with patients that a brief consultation does not allow. Text 1 · paragraph 3

“I can't fix those with a fifteen-minute appointment and a script. Somebody needs the time to sit with the patient, and that somebody doesn't need a medical degree.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A She says the person 'doesn't need a medical degree'. Concern about missed medical problems is raised by others in paragraph 6.
- B 'A fifth' refers to consultations driven by social problems. The fall in visits in her pilot was 27 per cent.
- D She mentions fifteen-minute appointments only to say they are too short to fix social problems. She says nothing about seeing more patients.
30C the improvement many patients would show over time without any referral. Text 1 · paragraph 4

“People tend to see their GP when they are at their worst, and over time many of them would improve anyway.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Studies lacking a comparison group are the design weakness that lets the phenomenon mislead, but the phenomenon itself is the natural improvement.
- B Whitcombe's point is that the fall in attendance may happen anyway. He does not attribute it to social needs being met.
- D Patients see their GP 'at their worst', but Whitcombe does not describe any choice about which patients are referred. The phenomenon is their later improvement.
31A She argues that other referrals are not judged by the same standard. Text 1 · paragraph 5

“'Nobody demands a randomised trial before we refer someone to a physiotherapist,' she says.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- B She 'accepts the criticism up to a point', so she does not reject it.
- C She thinks demanding trials is an 'unfair standard'. It is Whitcombe who wants a large trial.
- D She says such outcomes are 'hard to capture', which is the opposite.
32D Its benefits depend on activities that his town may be unable to offer. Text 1 · paragraph 6

“'You can only prescribe what exists,' he says. 'In a city there might be twenty groups to choose from. Here, a link worker would spend most of her time discovering there's nothing to link people to.'”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Link workers on short contracts leaving is the writer's point about funding in paragraph 7. Hadley does not raise it.
- B This worry is attributed to 'Others' and acknowledged by Raman. It is not Hadley's concern.
- C Pressure on groups receiving referrals is Moretti's point. Hadley says there is 'nothing to link people to', not that existing groups would be overwhelmed.
33C the workload that referrals create for groups that receive no extra funding. Text 1 · paragraph 7

“There's an assumption that the community sector will simply absorb it,' says Linda Moretti”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Lost relationships are the writer's point about link workers leaving, made before Moretti speaks.
- B She says extra volunteers had to be trained, not that they were hard to recruit. Her point is that the health system did not pay for it.
- D She calls the growth 'wonderful'. She objects to the lack of payment, not to the number of referrals.
34C Whitcombe and Raman each want the means to evaluate the approach properly. Text 1 · paragraph 8

“Both, perhaps, are asking for the same thing: the chance to find out properly.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Ellison is 'untroubled by the debate', but the writer does not conclude from this that the debate is irrelevant to patients.
- B Both a trial and lasting funding are mentioned, but the writer never says that one should come before the other.
- D The writer reports both requests side by side and does not judge which is more realistic.
35B Imaging of his head was delayed until a change in his pupils was noticed. Text 2 · paragraph 1

“Over the next four hours he was reviewed twice, given intravenous fluids and left to sleep it off. It was only when a nurse starting the night shift noticed that one of his pupils was larger than the other that a CT scan was ordered.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A He was 'reviewed twice' during the four hours, not once.
- C He was 'given intravenous fluids' during the first four hours. Fluids were not withheld.
- D No delay to surgery is described. He had 'emergency surgery' after the scan. What was delayed was the scan.
36B It is seldom documented through the incident reporting system. Text 2 · paragraph 2

“Unlike a medication error, however, a missed diagnosis rarely produces an incident report; often nobody, including the clinician, ever learns that it happened.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A This is contradicted: often nobody, 'including the clinician', ever learns that the error happened.
- C The paragraph says only 'a fraction' of wrongly diagnosed patients are seriously harmed. It makes no comparison of severity with medication errors.
- D Low rates translating into large numbers is said of diagnostic error in general. It is not given as a point of comparison with medication error.
37C It is usually what is needed, yet the feature that makes it quick is also a risk. Text 2 · paragraph 3

“'Most of the time that's exactly what you want. It's how an expert spots sepsis from across the room,' she says. 'The trouble is that the same shortcut that makes us fast also makes us vulnerable.'”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A The checklist for falls is introduced later as a prompt to doubt. She does not say that pattern recognition should be replaced by it for any group of patients.
- B Sepsis is her example of the method working well. She uses the cubicle 6 case to illustrate anchoring, not a type of condition where the method is weaker.
- D Her link between exhaustion and bias comes later, in her reply to Bergstrom. Here she says the speed of the shortcut is itself the source of vulnerability.
38A It was followed by more requests for senior review, but its effect on missed diagnoses is unclear. Text 2 · paragraph 4

“An internal review found that requests for senior review rose after the change, although she concedes that the department has not been able to show a fall in missed diagnoses.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- B Senior review requests did rise, but the department 'has not been able to show a fall in missed diagnoses'.
- C This reverses the finding. Requests for senior review rose after the change.
- D An internal review was carried out, and it found a rise in requests for senior review.
39D show that learning to recognise a bias does not protect clinicians from it. Text 2 · paragraph 5

“'Knowing the name of a bias doesn't stop you having it, any more than knowing about optical illusions stops you seeing them,' he says.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Bergstrom does discuss overload, but separately, as an alternative explanation for errors. The illusion comparison is about the limits of awareness.
- B He cites experimental studies as support for his view. He does not question their reliability.
- C The analogy concerns how the mind works, not physical examination. Misreading signs is not discussed.
40C She accepts that workload matters, but thinks better staffing alone could never remove shortcuts. Text 2 · paragraph 6

“'But you will never staff an emergency department so well that nobody ever takes a shortcut.'”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A She directly links the two: 'An exhausted doctor is a biased doctor.'
- B She says the opposite: no level of staffing will stop people taking shortcuts.
- D She 'does not see the two approaches as competing' and does not rank one before the other.
41B Clinicians' self-assurance goes unchecked because they rarely learn how patients fared. Text 2 · paragraph 7

“A patient discharged with musculoskeletal chest pain who is admitted to another hospital with a heart attack two days later may never come to the original doctor's attention. Without that information, says Bergstrom, 'confidence and accuracy drift apart, and nobody notices'.”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A Bergstrom uses workload to explain some errors elsewhere. Here the gap is caused by the lack of information about outcomes.
- C Learning about changed diagnoses is the remedy offered by the summaries. The phrase describes what happens when clinicians do not learn this.
- D Follow-up of test results is one of Bergstrom's system priorities. The phrase describes clinicians staying confident, not losing confidence.
42D speaking up about a concern should be routine rather than something that takes courage. Text 2 · paragraph 8

“'A culture in which someone was willing to speak up did. Our job is to make that the normal thing to do, not the brave thing.'”
Why the other options are wrong:
- A She states 'The checklist didn't save him'. She credits the culture, not the checklist.
- B She says the opposite: 'A culture in which someone was willing to speak up' saved him.
- C The paragraph presents a profession that 'prizes decisiveness' as part of the obstacle. Senior leadership is not offered as the solution.

How to answer Part C

Part C is less about finding a fact and more about following who thinks what. Most wrong options are true statements from the text that answer a different question.

One paragraph at a time. Questions follow the text. Find the paragraph for the question, then decide.
Separate the voices. In text 1, the GP, the researcher and the writer each take a different position. Ask whose view the question wants.
“In order to” questions ask why the writer included something. Question 27 is one: the story opens the debate about what counts as evidence; it does not prove anything.

For the test interface with all three parts, start Reading test R01.

Practise every part free

Listening Part A practice24 note gaps, 2 consultations Listening Part B practice6 workplace extracts Listening Part C practice12 questions, 2 talks Reading Part A practice20 questions, 15 minutes Reading Part B practice6 workplace texts

Questions candidates ask

What is OET Reading Part C?

Part C is two long texts on healthcare topics of general interest, like articles in a professional magazine. Each has eight multiple-choice questions with four options, so Part C is worth 16 of the 42 Reading marks.

How long do I have for OET Reading Part C?

Parts B and C share 45 minutes. If you finish Part B in about 10 minutes, you have about 35 minutes for the two Part C texts, roughly 17 minutes each. That split is our suggestion, not an OET rule.

What do Part C questions test?

The writer’s purpose, the opinions of people quoted, the meaning of a phrase in context, and what a word such as “this” or “it” refers to. The questions follow the order of the text, usually one or two per paragraph.

How many marks do I need in OET Reading for a B?

OET adjusts the conversion for each test, so there is no fixed table. Its guidance is that about 30 of the 42 Reading marks is usually around 350 (grade B). Some regulators, such as AHPRA from 23 April 2026, need 360.

Is this an official OET sample test?

No. Both texts and all questions are original and written for this site; the people quoted are fictional.

Sources

Last checked 10 November 2026. Rules and prices change: confirm on the official page before you book or apply.

OETAce is an independent practice site. OET is a registered trademark of Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment (CBLA); we are not affiliated with or endorsed by CBLA. All practice material here is original.