OET READING · Practice Test 05
OET Reading practice for nurses
This original English Guru Campus practice test is designed for nurses and other healthcare professionals preparing for the OET Reading sub-test. It contains 42 questions in three parts: a rapid Part A task using four texts on one clinical topic, six short workplace extracts in Part B, and two longer healthcare articles in Part C. You have 60 minutes in total. Part A is strictly limited to 15 minutes and locks automatically when its timer expires; the remaining time is used for Parts B and C. On desktop, the reading material and questions appear in separate, independently scrollable panes. Mobile candidates receive a clear stacked layout. Your responses, flags and timer state are saved during the current browser session. After submission, you will receive raw and part-wise scores, an approximate OET scaled score and grade, plus a complete question-by-question review with answers and explanations.
Before you begin
Part A: Questions 1–20, 15 minutes. It locks automatically.
Parts B and C: Questions 21–42, using the time remaining from the 60-minute total.
This page saves progress in this browser session. The total timer starts only when you select Start Test.
Text A: Postoperative stoma assessment guide
A newly formed colostomy or ileostomy should normally appear moist and pink-red. Mild oedema is expected during the early postoperative period, and a small amount of spotting may occur when the stoma is cleaned because the tissue has a rich blood supply. Oedema should gradually reduce; while the stoma is changing size, it must be re-measured at every pouch change.
At each assessment, record the stoma type and location, colour, moisture, protrusion, swelling and output. Inspect the mucocutaneous junction, where the bowel meets the abdominal skin, and document the condition of the surrounding peristomal skin. Compare findings with the previous assessment rather than relying on a single observation.
Report a stoma that becomes unusually pale, dry, deep purple or black for urgent surgical review. Also escalate separation at the mucocutaneous junction, rapidly increasing swelling, persistent bleeding from inside the stoma or a sudden marked change in output. Do not classify minor surface spotting during gentle cleaning as persistent bleeding.
Text B: Pouch-changing checklist
- Explain the procedure, provide privacy, perform hand hygiene and assemble the prescribed pouch, measuring guide, disposal bag, soft wipes and warm water.
- Empty the used pouch. Support the skin and remove the adhesive gently from top to bottom. Do not pull the pouch abruptly away from the abdomen.
- Clean the stoma and surrounding skin with warm water. Avoid oil-based soaps, alcohol wipes and unprescribed creams because residue may prevent adhesion.
- Pat the skin dry thoroughly. Inspect for soreness, broken skin, bleeding, folds or moisture before applying a new appliance.
- Measure the stoma and cut the skin-barrier opening 1–2 mm larger than its base. The opening should not constrict the stoma or leave a wide ring of skin exposed to output.
- Centre the opening, apply gentle pressure around the seal for 30 seconds and check that the outlet is closed. Record the change and any abnormal findings.
Text C: Common problems and immediate nursing responses
| Finding | Immediate response |
|---|---|
| Repeated leakage | Remove and replace the entire appliance. Reassess the opening size, abdominal creases and wear time; do not reinforce a failing seal with adhesive tape. |
| Red, sore or weeping peristomal skin | Identify possible contact with output, dry the area carefully and arrange review by the stoma care nurse. Do not apply an unprescribed topical product. |
| Retracted stoma | Check output and the seal. Ask the stoma care nurse to assess whether a convex appliance is appropriate; do not select one without specialist assessment. |
| Prolapsed stoma | Protect it from friction, help the patient lie comfortably and seek specialist review. Escalate urgently if there is severe pain, colour change or loss of output. |
| High liquid output | Measure the output, begin a fluid-balance record and monitor urine output, pulse and symptoms of dehydration. Follow the patient's prescribed replacement plan and escalate according to the individual care pathway. |
| Little or no output with cramps, distension, nausea or vomiting | Arrange urgent medical assessment for possible obstruction. Do not insert an object into the stoma or irrigate it unless a clinician has prescribed this. |
Text D: Discharge readiness and escalation pathway
Before discharge
- Confirm that the patient or carer can empty and change the pouch, protect the skin and dispose of used equipment.
- Provide sufficient supplies, written product details and contact information for the stoma care team.
- Explain that food should be reintroduced according to the postoperative plan and chewed thoroughly. Advice must be individualised rather than based on a universal list of forbidden foods.
- Review the patient's hydration plan, prescribed medicines and the signs of dehydration. Patients with an ileostomy should understand why liquid output and urine output may need closer monitoring.
After discharge
Contact the stoma care team promptly for repeated leakage, persistent sore skin, difficulty obtaining a secure seal or uncertainty about supplies. Seek urgent clinical assessment for a black stoma, persistent heavy bleeding, severe or increasing abdominal pain, marked distension, repeated vomiting, collapse, or little or no output accompanied by cramping or nausea.
Extract 1: Medication reconciliation during ward transfer
When a patient moves to another ward, the transferring nurse must compare the current medication chart with the latest prescription, recent administrations and any documented temporary holds. Unresolved discrepancies must be discussed with the prescriber or pharmacist before transfer whenever clinically possible. The receiving nurse should not assume that medicines omitted during transport are intentionally discontinued. At handover, state which doses are due, delayed, withheld or awaiting clarification, and identify time-critical medicines explicitly. Both nurses must record completion of the reconciliation step in the electronic transfer record. If an urgent transfer prevents full reconciliation, flag the outstanding work, name the clinician responsible for completing it and specify the required time frame.
Extract 2: Lone-worker safety during a home visit
Community staff must review the available risk information before undertaking a home visit and record their destination and expected return time through the approved lone-worker system. A personal alarm or charged work telephone must be carried and kept accessible. If the environment appears unsafe on arrival, staff should remain outside, move to a secure location and contact the coordinator; professional obligation does not require entering a property where there is an immediate threat. During a visit, use the agreed check-in procedure and report any significant change in risk. Failure to return or check in by the escalation time activates the service’s response plan. Personal safety concerns and near misses must be documented so that future visits can be planned appropriately.
Extract 3: Consent for clinical photography
A clinical photograph may be taken only for a defined care, teaching or publication purpose and with the appropriate level of consent for that purpose. Before taking the image, explain who will see it, where it will be stored and whether identifying features can be excluded. Consent for inclusion in the health record does not automatically authorise use in teaching or publicity. Use only an organisation-owned device and upload the image directly to the approved secure system; personal telephones and messaging applications are prohibited. Label the image according to policy without embedding unnecessary identifying details. A patient may withdraw permission for future non-clinical use, although an image already forming part of the clinical record is managed under health-record requirements.
Extract 4: Cytotoxic-drug spill response
Restrict access to the affected area and bring the designated cytotoxic-spill kit to the site. Staff managing the spill must put on the protective equipment specified in the kit instructions before touching contaminated material. Absorb liquid from the outside edge towards the centre to limit spread, and place used materials, contaminated disposable items and protective equipment in the labelled cytotoxic-waste container. Do not use a general ward mop or place waste in a domestic or ordinary clinical-waste bag. If skin or eyes are exposed, begin the stated decontamination procedure immediately and obtain occupational-health or emergency advice as indicated. Notify the nurse in charge, document the exposure or spill and arrange replacement of the used spill kit.
Extract 5: Unexpectedly missing inpatient
When an inpatient cannot be located, first check the immediate clinical area, scheduled appointments and any authorised leave information without delaying escalation for a high-risk patient. Inform the nurse in charge and assess the level of risk using the patient’s condition, capacity, mobility, treatment needs and any likelihood of harm. Follow the missing-patient procedure appropriate to that risk, providing security or police with an accurate description and relevant safety information when escalation is required. Staff should not conduct an uncoordinated search or disclose unnecessary clinical details. Continue essential care for other patients and preserve possible evidence such as the time and location last seen. Record actions, decisions and communications contemporaneously, and complete an incident report after the immediate response.
Extract 6: Fatigue and fitness to practise
A staff member who believes fatigue may impair safe practice must inform the shift coordinator as early as possible. The coordinator should review immediate risks, workload, rest opportunities and whether duties can be modified or reassigned. Staff must not conceal impairment because the ward is busy, nor should reporting fatigue automatically be treated as misconduct. Where safe working cannot be maintained, the escalation route to the duty manager must be used. The staff member remains responsible for avoiding safety-critical tasks beyond their current capacity and for following advice about rest or transport home. Recurrent fatigue concerns require confidential review of rostering, health factors and workplace controls. All decisions should protect patients while avoiding blame-based responses that discourage early reporting.
Nurse-led clinics: expanding access without weakening continuity
Paragraph 1
Nurse-led clinics have moved from the margins of healthcare to a prominent place in chronic-disease management. Their expansion is usually justified by rising demand, medical workforce pressure and the need to bring follow-up closer to patients. Debate about them, however, is often framed too crudely: either nurses are portrayed as economical substitutes for doctors or critics assume that any transfer of responsibility must reduce quality. Both positions mistake a service model for a job-title contest. The useful question is not whether a clinic is nurse-led, but whether its staff, authority, support and connections allow it to meet the needs of the people referred to it.
Paragraph 2
Evidence from diabetes, respiratory, cardiac and other long-term-condition services is encouraging. Many programmes report good patient satisfaction, timely access and outcomes comparable with conventional follow-up. Nurses may have more opportunity to explore medicine-taking, daily routines and the practical obstacles hidden behind an apparently simple instruction. Yet favourable averages do not prove that every nurse-led clinic will work. Studies combine different professional qualifications, patient groups and degrees of medical support. A highly trained specialist nurse operating within a mature multidisciplinary service cannot be treated as equivalent to a newly created clinic given a protocol and an ambitious appointment target.
Paragraph 3
Continuity is frequently described as an advantage, but it does not arise automatically from the word nurse. Patients value a professional who remembers what happened previously and notices gradual change. That relational knowledge can improve confidence and reveal problems that isolated appointments miss. Nevertheless, a clinic built around one exceptionally committed nurse is fragile: leave, turnover or increasing demand may break the relationship on which the service depends. Durable continuity requires shared records, consistent pathways and a small team able to preserve the clinical narrative when a particular practitioner is unavailable.
Paragraph 4
The question of professional boundaries is equally important. Protocols can support routine monitoring, medicine adjustment and education, but chronic illness rarely remains neatly inside a protocol. New symptoms, conflicting conditions or unexpected results may require diagnostic reasoning beyond the clinic's agreed scope. Escalation should therefore be designed into the pathway, with rapid access to medical or specialist advice and explicit responsibility for acting on abnormal findings. Referring a patient onwards is not evidence that a nurse-led model has failed. On the contrary, recognising the limit of one's authority is part of competent practice. A service becomes unsafe when escalation is treated as an inconvenience that damages performance figures.
Paragraph 5
Claims of lower cost also need examination. Salary differences are visible, whereas the infrastructure that makes advanced nursing safe is easily hidden. Education, protected supervision, prescribing support, administrative time, data review and cover for absence all have costs. If commissioners count only the clinic appointment, they may celebrate savings produced by shifting work elsewhere: general practitioners answer unresolved questions, emergency departments manage delayed deterioration, or nurses complete follow-up administration after their paid sessions. Economic value should be assessed across the whole pathway, not inferred from the professional category of the person conducting the consultation.
Paragraph 6
Access presents a similar paradox. A local or remote nurse-led clinic may reduce travel and waiting for many patients, but a standardised model can create new exclusions. Digital appointments may disadvantage people without privacy, reliable connectivity or confidence using technology. Fixed education programmes may not fit shift workers, carers or people requiring an interpreter. Some patients with several conditions become responsible for attending multiple disease-specific clinics, each efficient in isolation but collectively burdensome. Accessibility therefore has to be measured from the patient's route through care, not from the number of appointment slots a service produces.
Paragraph 7
The strongest nurse-led clinics are consequently neither miniature medical clinics nor inexpensive holding areas. They use advanced nursing expertise for the work it is particularly suited to: sustained assessment, education, coordination and support for self-management. They also define competence, escalation and medical collaboration without ambiguity. Patients should know who is responsible, how to obtain help between appointments and what happens when their needs exceed the clinic's remit. Expansion is justified when it strengthens the pathway as a whole. When it is used merely to disguise understaffing or transfer complex work without resources, the label “nurse-led” offers reassurance that the design has not earned.
Why hospitals need to take patient sleep seriously
Paragraph 1
Sleep in hospital is often discussed as though it were an optional comfort, desirable after the “real” work of diagnosis and treatment has been completed. Patients themselves are familiar with the irony: they are told that rest will aid recovery and then awakened by conversations, lights, equipment and routine tasks. Some disruption is unavoidable, especially when deterioration is possible. But describing every disturbance as medically necessary protects habits that have never been examined. The more useful distinction is between interruption that responds to an individual clinical risk and interruption created because the ward has organised work around its own convenience.
Paragraph 2
Poor sleep rarely has a single cause. Pain, breathlessness, anxiety and unfamiliar surroundings interact with alarms, staff activity, other patients and light from corridors. A noisy trolley may be blamed for an awakening that would not have occurred if pain had been controlled; anxiety may make a brief alarm feel impossible to ignore. This complexity matters because simple campaigns tend to select the most visible cause and promise a universal remedy. Removing one source of noise can help, but it does not create restorative sleep if observations remain scattered through the night or a patient is too uncomfortable to settle.
Paragraph 3
Overnight observations illustrate the difficulty. Regular monitoring may be essential for one patient and of little value for another whose condition has been stable for days. Yet schedules are often inherited from admission routines and continued without review. A sleep-conscious ward does not simply cancel observations. It asks whether their frequency still reflects current risk, whether several necessary tasks can be clustered into one encounter and whether information already available from monitoring equipment prevents duplication. Clustering care is not the same as rushing it: the aim is to create a longer protected interval while preserving a clear route for detecting deterioration.
Paragraph 4
Noise-reduction initiatives can also fail when they rely on posters requesting silence or on reminding nurses to speak quietly. Staff behaviour matters, but much ward noise is designed into the environment. Bin lids slam, doors close sharply, alarms are poorly differentiated and workstations draw conversation towards bed spaces. A “quiet at night” sign does little if equipment remains unnecessarily loud or if staff have nowhere else to exchange essential information. Repeatedly instructing individuals to compensate for poor design may produce guilt without producing quiet. Environmental maintenance, alarm review and changes to the location of work are less visible than a campaign, but often more durable.
Paragraph 5
Patient-level aids have a place within this broader approach. Eye masks, earplugs, relaxation recordings or white noise may help selected patients, provided that communication and safety are not compromised. They should be offered rather than imposed, because sensory impairment, confusion, trauma or a need to hear staff may make them unsuitable. Nor should an earplug become an excuse to ignore avoidable noise. Such measures can improve the patient's immediate sleep opportunity, but they cannot correct a ward routine that fragments the night by design. Sedative medicines likewise require individual clinical judgement and should not become the routine answer to environmental disturbance.
Paragraph 6
The phrase “sleep opportunity” is important. Hospitals cannot guarantee that a person in pain or fear will sleep, and judging a ward only by total hours may encourage misleading comparisons. Services can, however, measure whether they provide conditions in which sleep is possible: protected periods, comfortable lighting, prompt symptom control and fewer preventable interruptions. Patient reports are essential because sound meters cannot reveal whether a noise was frightening, whether staff explained an interruption or whether the timing of care made it difficult to settle again. Objective and subjective information answer different questions.
Paragraph 7
Improvement therefore begins with reviewing the whole night from the patient's perspective. Teams can map when medicines, observations, cleaning, transfers and conversations occur, then identify which activities are fixed, which can be combined and which reflect custom rather than need. Changes should be monitored for unintended consequences; a quieter ward that delays necessary care is not an improvement. Protecting sleep is neither a hospitality extra nor an instruction to stop monitoring. It is a design responsibility: organise necessary care so that safety and rest are treated as related clinical goals instead of automatic competitors.
Your result
Important: The scaled score and grade are approximate and are not official OET results.
Expand complete answer review
Question 1
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text A explains that postoperative oedema reduces and the changing stoma must be measured at every pouch change.
Support: “while the stoma is changing size, it must be re-measured at every pouch change”
Question 2
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text B specifies an opening 1–2 mm larger than the stoma base.
Support: “1–2 mm larger than its base”
Question 3
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text C explicitly prohibits inserting an object into the stoma when output stops.
Support: “Do not insert an object into the stoma”
Question 4
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text C says to replace the appliance rather than reinforce a failing seal with tape.
Support: “do not reinforce a failing seal with adhesive tape”
Question 5
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text D lists the pouch-care skills that must be confirmed before discharge.
Support: “Confirm that the patient or carer can empty and change the pouch”
Question 6
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text A requires inspection of the mucocutaneous junction.
Support: “Inspect the mucocutaneous junction”
Question 7
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text B warns that oil-based soaps, alcohol wipes and unprescribed creams may prevent adhesion.
Support: “residue may prevent adhesion”
Question 8
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text A describes a healthy new stoma as moist and pink-red.
Support: “moist and pink-red”
Question 9
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text A says the changing stoma must be re-measured at every pouch change.
Support: “re-measured at every pouch change”
Question 10
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text B directs staff to clean the area with warm water.
Support: “clean… with warm water”
Question 11
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text B requires the skin to be patted dry thoroughly before the appliance is applied.
Support: “Pat the skin dry thoroughly”
Question 12
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text C instructs staff to replace the entire appliance after leakage.
Support: “replace the entire appliance”
Question 13
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text C requires urine-output monitoring during high liquid output.
Support: “monitor urine output”
Question 14
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text D advises that food should be chewed thoroughly.
Support: “chewed thoroughly”
Question 15
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text A says a small amount of spotting may occur during cleaning.
Support: “a small amount of spotting may occur”
Question 16
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text C assigns assessment for a convex appliance to the stoma care nurse.
Support: “Ask the stoma care nurse to assess”
Question 17
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text C requires a fluid-balance record for high liquid output.
Support: “begin a fluid-balance record”
Question 18
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text C identifies possible obstruction as the reason for urgent assessment.
Support: “possible obstruction”
Question 19
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text D directs patients with persistent seal problems to the stoma care team.
Support: “Contact the stoma care team”
Question 20
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Text D lists a black stoma as requiring urgent clinical assessment.
Support: “a black stoma”
Question 21
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The transfer handover must make discrepancies, due doses and responsibility for incomplete reconciliation explicit.
Support: “identify… outstanding work [and] name the clinician responsible”
Question 22
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Staff are told not to enter an environment presenting an immediate threat and to move to safety.
Support: “professional obligation does not require entering… where there is an immediate threat”
Question 23
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Consent for the clinical record does not automatically permit teaching or publicity use.
Support: “does not automatically authorise use in teaching or publicity”
Question 24
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The designated kit contains the specific protective and containment materials required for cytotoxic contamination.
Support: “protective equipment specified in the kit instructions”
Question 25
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The response level is determined by the patient-specific risk assessment.
Support: “assess the level of risk using the patient’s condition…”
Question 26
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The policy promotes early reporting and a proportionate review of safe duties without automatic blame.
Support: “review immediate risks… and whether duties can be modified”
Question 27
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The paragraph rejects a title-based debate and says service design determines whether needs can be met.
Support: “The useful question is not whether a clinic is nurse-led…”
Question 28
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The evidence combines clinics with different staff qualifications, patient groups and support arrangements.
Support: “Studies combine different professional qualifications…”
Question 29
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Continuity must survive staff absence through shared records, pathways and team arrangements.
Support: “Durable continuity requires shared records…”
Question 30
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The writer presents recognition of limits and appropriate referral as competent practice.
Support: “recognising the limit of one’s authority is part of competent practice”
Question 31
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Headline savings may omit education, supervision and work displaced elsewhere in the pathway.
Support: “the infrastructure… is easily hidden”
Question 32
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: A model that improves access overall may still exclude people facing digital, language or scheduling barriers.
Support: “a standardised model can create new exclusions”
Question 33
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Multiple efficient disease-specific clinics may collectively burden a patient with several conditions.
Support: “each efficient in isolation but collectively burdensome”
Question 34
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The conclusion identifies the design, support and accountability required for justified expansion.
Support: “Expansion is justified when it strengthens the pathway as a whole”
Question 35
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The writer challenges the view that sleep is merely an optional comfort after clinical work.
Support: “an optional comfort”
Question 36
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The interaction shows why removing one visible disturbance may not solve the wider sleep problem.
Support: “Poor sleep rarely has a single cause”
Question 37
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Clustering coordinates necessary tasks to create a longer protected interval without abandoning monitoring.
Support: “create a longer protected interval”
Question 38
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Signs and reminders target behaviour but leave equipment, layout and work-location causes unchanged.
Support: “much ward noise is designed into the environment”
Question 39
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Patient aids can help selected people, but they cannot correct a night fragmented by ward design.
Support: “cannot correct a ward routine that fragments the night”
Question 40
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Sleep opportunity means providing conditions in which sleep is reasonably possible, not guaranteeing it.
Support: “conditions in which sleep is possible”
Question 41
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: Patient reports reveal meaning, fear, explanation and recovery from interruption that meters cannot measure.
Support: “sound meters cannot reveal whether a noise was frightening”
Question 42
Your answer:
Correct answer:
Explanation: The conclusion calls for ward design that treats safety and rest as related clinical goals.
Support: “safety and rest are treated as related clinical goals”
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