PTE EXAM

PTE Academic is one of the popular English proficiency tests accepted at universities around the world. Knowing the correct PTE Exam Pattern and Format is compulsory if you want to prepare well for the PTE Preparation. Here is all you need to know about the PTE Pattern.

PTE Speaking Test Format

There are 6 types of questions in the Speaking test. After a question is displayed on the screen, a timer appears at certain intervals of time, which tells candidates when to start and when to stop speaking. When the screen says “Recording”, they have to begin talking. The audio is recorded and submitted automatically. They can answer each question only once. They can jump to the next question by pressing the “Next” button. Or, after the given time runs out, candidates will automatically be moved to the next question.

Personal introduction

• The first task is to record a short personal introduction.
• Candidates have to talk about anything that they want to, or they can use the cues that are provided on the screen, such as “your hobby”, “your education”, etc. They get one minute.
• This item is not scored, so no matter what candidates say, this question does not have any effect on their score.

Read aloud

• There are 6 to 7 questions.
• Here, paragraphs will appear on the screen. Candidates have to read loudly into the microphone.
• A single question may be up to 60 words long.
• Candidates get 40 seconds to study the question. After 40 seconds, the screen displays a sign that says “Recording” and then they should start talking. They are given 40 more seconds to record their answer.

Repeat sentence

• There are 10 to 12 questions.
• A sentence is played through the candidate's headphones. Immediately after listening to the sentence, they have to repeat it as exactly as possible.
• Sentences could be between 3 and 9 seconds long.
• Candidates will be given 15 seconds to answer each question.

Describe image

• There are 3 to 4 questions.
• Candidates have to verbally describe images that are displayed on the screen.
• They might get bar graphs, line graphs, pie charts, diagrams, photographs, and maps to describe.
• Once an image comes on the screen, they are allocated 25 seconds to study it. Then, the microphone opens for 40 seconds.

Re-tell lecture

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• Candidates will listen to a short lecture, which can be as long as 90 seconds.
• They can take notes with pen and paper while listening.
• After the lecture ends, they will get 40 seconds to give a summary of what they just heard.

Answer short questions

• There are 5 to 6 questions.
• These are short, quiz contest-type questions, where candidates need to give short answers: usually 1or 2 words.
• Candidates get 10 seconds to answer each question.

PTE Writing Academic Test Format

There are 2 types of questions in the Writing section of the PTE Academic test. Candidates have to type their answers. Each question has a time limit. If the time limit is reached, they will automatically be directed to the next question. If candidates finish before the allocated time, they can jump to the next question but the residual time will not be added.

Summarize written text

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• A passage of around 300 words in length is displayed on the screen.
• Candidates will be given 10 minutes to write a summary of the passage.
• The summary should be written in a single sentence between 5 and 75 words.

Write essay

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• Candidates have to write an essay, based on a prompt, in 20 minutes.
• The length of the essay should be between 200 and 300 words.

PTE Reading Exam Format

In the Reading section, there are 5 types of questions. One thing to note is that each question does not have a time limit, but candidates have to complete all the questions in the given time. They have to press the “Next” button once they complete a question or after a certain time even if they do not know the answer.

Reading and writing: Fill in the blanks

• There are 5 to 6 questions.
• A passage will be displayed on the screen with several blanks. When candidates click on a blank, a list of options appears. They have to select one of the options and click on the next blank.

Multiple choice, choose multiple answers

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• A passage of around 300 words long is displayed on the screen with one question beside it.
• Usually, there will be between 5 and 7 options given. And, candidates have to select more than one correct answer based on the passage.
• In most questions, there are 2 or more correct answers and they have to select all of them.

Re-order paragraphs

• There are 2 to 3 questions.
• Candidates will be given 4 or 5 sentences. The task is to arrange the sentences into logical paragraphs.
• They have to identify which of the sentences is the introduction sentence, which sentence comes after which sentence, and which sentence is the conclusion.

Reading: Fill in the blanks

• There are 4 to 5 questions.
• Here candidates will get a passage that may be up to 150 words with several blanks.
• A list of options will be provided below the passage. They have to drag the correct word into the respective blank.

Multiple choice, choose a single answer

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• A passage that can be as long as 300 words and an accompanying question are provided on the screen.
• Candidates have to select the correct option. Only one answer is correct.

PTE Listening Test Format

Different types of audio recordings will be played via headphones in the Listening test. There are 8 types of questions in the PTE test format 2022. Candidates have to complete all the questions in the total allocated time. There is a clock on their screen, which tells them how much time is remaining. They can listen to the audio-only once.

Summarize spoken text

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• Candidates will listen to an audio recording and they can take notes.
• Here, they have to write a summary of the lecture in 10 minutes. This is the only Listening question with a time limitation.
• The word limit for their summary is 50 to 70 words.

Multiple choice, choose multiple answers

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• Audio between 40 and 90 seconds will be played. Based on that, candidates have to select the correct options.
• More than one answer is correct, so they have to select all the correct ones to get the full score. Otherwise, they will only get a partial score.

Fill in the blanks

• There are 2 to 3 questions.
• A passage with blanks appears on the screen. Then, candidates will hear an audio transcript of the same passage. As the speaker is talking, they have to make notes of the words that the speaker uses in the places of the blanks and type them in.

Highlight correct summary

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• Based on the audio recordings candidates hear, they have to select the best summary from a list of options provided on the screen.

Multiple-choice, choose a single answer

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• Each audio recording could be up to 1 minute long. Candidates should listen attentively, and select one correct answer to the given question.

Select missing word

• There are 1 to 2 questions.
• An audio recording is played which is of 20 and 70 seconds. But, the audio ends suddenly without finishing the last sentence.
• From the given options, candidates have to select the best ending to the audio recording.

Highlight incorrect words

• There are 2 to 3 questions.
• A passage appears on the screen and audio of somebody reading the same passage is played.
• However, the speaker replaces some words from the passage.
• Candidates’ job is to identify the words which the speaker replaced by clicking on those words on the screen.

Write from dictation

• There are 3 to 4 questions.
• A sentence is played. The candidate's job is to write down whatever was said.

PTE scores are declared within 5 business days of the test. The PTE scores are declared the fastest of all the English language exams taken worldwide. The scores of PTE have a range of 10 to 90 for all four sections.