OET Medicine Reading
How the paper is split
OET Medicine Reading is 60 minutes and 42 questions. Part A gives four short texts totalling roughly 600 words and 20 questions in a separately timed 15 minutes; it rewards scanning, not reading. Parts B and C share the remaining 45 minutes: six workplace texts of 150–250 words with one multiple-choice question each, then two long texts of about 800 words with eight questions each.
Rules that decide marks
- Part A answers must be lifted from the texts and kept within the stated word limit; copying a whole clause scores nothing.
- Part A items are answered by matching several conditions at once - clinic, day, service, eligibility - inside a single row or sentence.
- In Part B, identify the writer's purpose first (to instruct, warn, decline, confirm), then the supporting detail.
- In Part C, separate what the text reports from what it endorses; the correct option matches the text's strength of claim.
Worked example
A question asks: 'Which service offers spirometry on Saturday mornings without a referral?' Four clinic boxes are shown, each listing opening hours, services and access rules. Reading every box in full wastes the 15 minutes. Instead, scan down the services column for spirometry, filter for Saturday, then check the access line in that same box. Only the box satisfying all three conditions on one row is correct; a clinic offering spirometry on weekdays is a designed near-miss.
Traps that cost marks
- Reading Part A passages sentence by sentence and running out of time before question 10.
- Choosing an option that is true in the passage but does not answer the question asked.
- Part C options that overreach with 'all', 'never' or 'proves' where the text says 'may' or 'suggests'.
- Questions on a phrase's meaning in context, answered from the phrase's everyday sense rather than the surrounding argument.