PERT reading practice test: free drill and section guide
The PERT Reading subtest is 30 adaptive questions, 25 of them scored, on short passages: main ideas, supporting details, inferences, the author's purpose and tone, fact and opinion, claims and evidence, and word meaning from context. A score of 106 is college ready, and with Writing 103 it opens ENC 1101. The free drill below is 12 original PERT-style reading questions with every answer explained.
- 30
- reading questions, 25 scored
- 106
- college-ready minimum
- ENC 1101
- the course it opens
- 12
- questions in the free drill
Last checked · Test facts from Florida college testing centers and the P.E.R.T. study guide
Free Reading drill: 12 original PERT-style questions at an 18-minute practice pace, then every answer explained. No sign-up.
12
questions
18 min
time limit
Free
every answer explained
By the LifeScore Editorial Team · Updated · How we check facts · How this is scored
What is on the PERT reading test?
Short passages, from a few sentences to a few paragraphs, each with one or more questions about what the passage says, what it implies, why the author wrote it and what its words mean.
Main idea and summary
What the passage is mostly about, and which summary keeps its key points without adding new ones.
Details and inferences
What the passage states, and what it clearly implies one short step beyond what it states.
Claims and evidence
Which detail supports or weakens a claim, and whether an argument's evidence is relevant.
Purpose, tone and organization
Why the author wrote it, the attitude of the writing, and how the passage is put together.
Fact and opinion
Which statements can be checked and which are judgments.
Word meaning
What a word or phrase means in its sentence, which is often not its most common meaning.
What do PERT reading questions look like?
One short passage with a main-idea question, and one with a fact-or-opinion question; both are worked step by step.
PERT-style question 1 · Main idea
Which statement best expresses the main idea of the passage?
- AThe garden mattered most for the connections it created among neighbors.
- BThe garden grew more vegetables than officials expected.
- CThe library wanted to use the empty lot for parking.
- DCommunity gardens are the best use of empty land.
Worked answer
A: The garden mattered most for the connections it created among neighbors.. The passage turns on "the bigger change": neighbors speaking, sharing and organizing. That is the main idea; the vegetables are only the starting point.
- Find the turn: "It did, but the bigger change was harder to measure."
- What follows describes neighbors connecting and organizing.
- The main idea is the change the passage spends most of its words on.
The trap: "Community gardens are the best use of empty land" goes further than one garden can support. A main idea stays the size of the passage.
PERT-style question 2 · Fact or opinion
Which sentence states an opinion?
- ASentence 3
- BSentence 1
- CSentence 2
- DSentence 4
Worked answer
A: Sentence 3. "The most elegant structure in the region" is a judgment people could disagree with. The other sentences can be checked, including sentence 4, which reports an estimate as an estimate.
- Ask of each sentence: could it be checked?
- Opening date, lanes and a bike path can be checked; so can what officials estimate.
- "Most elegant" is a matter of taste: an opinion.
The trap: Sentence 4 is about the future, but it reports what officials estimate, which is a checkable fact about what they said.
More reading practice like this
Four reading drills and eight full PERT-style mocks, every answer explained like the ones above.
The PERT Pass Pack gives you 8 full mocks on the real clock, 12 drills of 12 questions for the sections that cost you points, and a predictor that turns your mocks into the odds of reaching your target. One payment, no subscription, and your free score stays free.
Prep courses for these tests usually cost $19 to $129. The PERT Pass Pack is US$39 (£29), once.
- 8
- timed mocks
- 12
- topic drills
- 1
- score predictor
What is the best way to answer PERT reading questions?
Read the question first, read the passage with it in mind, answer in your own words, then choose the option the passage proves, not the one that sounds most reasonable.
- Read the question and name its type: main idea, detail, inference, purpose, fact or opinion, or word meaning.
- Read the passage once, all the way through, with the question in mind.
- Answer in your own words before you look at the options.
- Point to the sentence that proves your choice. If you cannot, do not choose it.
- Eliminate options that are true in the world but not in the passage, and options that go further than the passage.
The PERT has no clock, so read every passage fully. Most wrong answers come from skimming once and choosing from memory.
How do I find the main idea on the PERT?
Look for the sentence the rest of the passage supports, often after a turn such as "but" or "however", and choose the option that is the size of the whole passage.
Wrong main-idea options are usually the wrong size. Some are too small: a detail from one sentence. Others are too big: a claim about the world that one passage cannot support. The right answer covers everything the passage spends its words on, and nothing more.
Watch for a turn. Many passages open with what people expected and then say what actually happened, and the main idea is usually what comes after the turn.
What are the common PERT reading traps?
Answers that are true but not in the passage, answers that go too far, opinions dressed as facts, and vocabulary answers that use a word's usual meaning.
- The outside-knowledge trap: an option that is true in the world but that the passage never says.
- The too-far trap: "always", "never" and "proves" when the passage only says "often" or "suggests".
- The detail-as-main-idea trap: an accurate sentence from the passage that is only one part of it.
- The fact-or-opinion trap: a sentence about the future or a number that is still a fact, because it reports what someone estimated.
- The dictionary trap: the most common meaning of a word, when the sentence uses another.
How should I practise PERT reading?
Take the free drill, sort your misses by question type, practise that type for three days, and take the full practice test at the end of the week.
Twenty minutes of focused reading a day is enough. On each miss, write the question type and the trap you fell for. After three days, one or two traps are usually doing most of the damage, and naming them is most of the fix.
Then take the full PERT practice test. Reading and Writing together decide ENC 1101, so practise the PERT writing practice test too. The full plan is in how to pass the PERT, and the TSI reading practice test trains the same skills if you want more passages.
Frequently asked questions
How many reading questions are on the PERT?
What PERT reading score do I need?
Are the passages long?
Is PERT reading timed?
Read your way into ENC 1101
Four drills for each PERT subtest, eight full mocks and every answer explained, in one payment.
The PERT Pass Pack gives you 8 full mocks on the real clock, 12 drills of 12 questions for the sections that cost you points, and a predictor that turns your mocks into the odds of reaching your target. One payment, no subscription, and your free score stays free.
Prep courses for these tests usually cost $19 to $129. The PERT Pass Pack is US$39 (£29), once.
- 8
- timed mocks
- 12
- topic drills
- 1
- score predictor