Education passages are a frequent focus in the “Careful Reading” section of CET-4, posing significant challenges for examinees. As an important aspect of sentence structure and discourse analysis, thematic progression patterns are crucial for understanding passages and solving test questions. This article, using the six thematic progression patterns proposed by Huang Guowen as a framework, explores the distribution characteristics, ways of their realization, and practical assistance of these patterns for examinees in education passages in the CET-4’s “Careful Reading”. This article finds that: (1) centralized pattern and extending pattern appear with higher frequency in education passages of CET-4’s “Careful Reading”, making them the two primary patterns; (2) the realization of thematic progression patterns in these passages are diverse and often used in combination, enhancing the coherence and logic of the passage, enriching expression, highlighting key points, and improving the overall quality and readability of the passage; (3) this study uses examples of detail question and inference question to demonstrate that thematic progression patterns can help examinees efficiently solve questions, aiming to provide targeted reading and answering strategies for examinees, thereby improving their reading comprehension and exam performance.