OET Reading Part C: Opinion, Fact, or Attitude?

Part C is the section where strong readers still lose marks — not because the vocabulary is hard, but because the question is not always about what the text says.

Two question types, one text

Part A and Part B mostly ask what a text states. Part C mixes that with a second, harder type: what the writer thinks about what they are describing. These require different reading behaviour entirely.

The trap: true, but not the answer

This is the single most common way Part C marks are lost. An attitude question offers an option that is genuinely something the text said. You recognise the phrase, feel confident, and select it — but the question asked what the writer thinks, and the option you chose was just a fact they reported, not their opinion of it.

Recognising a phrase is not the same as answering the question.

Reading for attitude: watch the modifiers

The signal sits in the modifying language, not the content words.

• “Results were promising” → optimism
• “Results showed a modest improvement” → restraint
• “The authors claim the treatment is effective” → scepticism (claim signals distance, unlike found)
• “It remains unclear” / “further work is needed” → genuine reservation

Same clinical content, different attitude — carried entirely by word choice.

The method

1. Read the question stem before the text. Decide immediately: fact or attitude.
2. Locate the relevant section. Part C questions follow the order of the passage.
3. Read closely for the type you identified. Don’t reread the whole text twice — once for content, once for questions. That’s how time runs out.

One more pattern worth knowing: reference questions (“what does this refer to?”). The answer is rarely the nearest noun — it’s usually a whole idea from the previous sentence or paragraph. Read backwards from the pronoun until you find a complete idea that fits.

Timing

Parts B and C share 45 minutes. Part B — six short workplace texts, one question each — should take 8–10 minutes if you don’t linger. That leaves roughly 17–18 minutes per Part C text. Over-investing in Part B is the most common way candidates arrive at Part C, the hardest section, with the least time.

What practice actually builds this skill

More practice tests alone don’t fix this — free ones are everywhere. The value is in the analysis afterwards: when you choose wrong, ask whether you mistook a fact for an attitude, and why the wrong option felt tempting. That question, asked every time, is what actually builds the instinct.

For the criteria behind OET Writing itself, see our OET writing criteria guide. And if reading technique isn’t your main gap, our OET writing correction service focuses specifically on the Writing sub-test, marked against all six official criteria.