PTE Academic

General Information
&
Test Preparation

Sabrina Elai
PTE Academic (English Test) - Mastering Reading - Score 79+

www.udemy.com/course/pte-academic-mastering-reading-score-79/

www.udemy.com/course/pte-academic-mastering-reading-score-79/#instructor-1 Sabrina Elai - PTE Reading

General Information

 Each test taker does 70 - 91 items in the test and there are 20 different
item types. The score given for each item contributes to the overall score.
The score range is 10 - 90 points. The communicative skills measured are
listening, reading, speaking and writing.

 During the test, you will find 20 different question formats, ranging from
multiple choice through to essay writing and interpreting information.

 The test is 3 hours, with a 10-minute break between Reading and

Listening.

 Negative marks: Across all four modules, two question types have
negative marks for incorrect responses. These are:
o Multiple choice – choose multiple answers - Both listening and
reading have this question type
o Highlight incorrect words
For these two, each correct answer gets you +1 score, while each
incorrect answer results in 1 negative mark.

 Scores for some item types are based on correctness alone, while others
are based on correctness, formal aspects and quality of the response.
Formal aspects refer to the form of the response; For example, whether
it is over or under the word limit for a particular item type. The quality of
the response is represented in the enabling skills. For example, in the
item type Re-tell lecture the response is scored on skills such as oral
fluency and pronunciation. There are two types of scoring: correct/
incorrect, and partial scoring.

 Correct or incorrect: If responses are correct, a score of 1 score point will

be given, but if they are incorrect, no score points are awarded.

 Partial credit: Other item types are scored as correct, partially correct or
incorrect. If responses to these items are correct, the maximum score
points available for each item type will be received, but if they are partly
correct, some score points will be given, but less than the maximum

www.udemy.com/course/pte-academic-mastering-reading-score-79/#instructor-1 Sabrina Elai - PTE Reading

 available for the item type. If responses are incorrect, no score points will
be received.

 PTE official website: “PTE Academic assesses real-life, academic English,

so you will hear excerpts from lectures and view graphs and charts. You
will hear a range of accents in the test, from British and American to non-
native speakers, so you will be exposed to the type of accents you will
encounter in everyday life.”

 Most of the listening pieces you hear are from actual seminars/ interviews
and classrooms so the quality is not perfect and also the speaker might
correct herself, or mumble, etc.

 Some question types contribute to multiple modules’ marks. “Summarise

spoken text” is assessed for both listening and writing; Same as “Write
from dictation”.

 Wherever you see “writing skill is tested”, it means it affects these areas
in your score report: Writing, Grammar, Vocabulary, Spelling.

 In summarizing questions, I always advise to use a combination of

keywords and appropriate synonyms. use synonyms instead of those
keywords which you know good synonyms for. For the rest, and the main
2-3 topic keywords, use the exact same keyword from lecture/ text.

 Timing: This falls into two categories: Some questions have their own
limited and dedicated time -like writing essay, 20mins- the rest are part
of a limited overall time allocated to the whole module. This is the case
for listening and reading section (except for listening summarize spoken
text).
So, you’d want to save as much time as possible at every one of listening
and reading questions because you never know if the question you’re
getting next is one of those really hard and time consuming ones.

 The automated scoring programs (the markers) are trained on scores

given by human raters. That’s something to have in mind; answer
questions as if a person is going to mark it.

www.udemy.com/course/pte-academic-mastering-reading-score-79/#instructor-1 Sabrina Elai - PTE Reading

  Format:
Reading is Part 2 of your PTE test. You get an overall of 32 – 41 minutes
to answer all the questions in this module.

Task Number of Scoring Negative Skills

Questions Mark
Multiple Choice, 2 -3 Correct/Incorrect No Reading
Single Answer
Multiple Choice, 2-3 Partial Credit Yes Reading
Multiple Answer
Re-order Paragraphs 2-3 Partial Credit No Reading
Fill in The Blanks 4-5 Partial Credit No Reading
(reading)
Fill in The Blanks 5-6 Partial Credit No Reading & Writing
(reading & writing)

www.udemy.com/course/pte-academic-mastering-reading-score-79/#instructor-1 Sabrina Elai - PTE Reading

Test Preparation:

 First, make yourself a spelling, and a grammar notebook. The first step to
improve your spelling and grammar, is to be aware of your common
mistakes.
Every spelling mistake you make, whether it’s during your exam prep
times, work, uni, or Google searches …., should go to that spelling
notebook.
Do the same for your English grammar.
After some time, you should have a record of all the spelling and grammar
mistakes you’ve made at some point and so are likely to make again in the
test.
You should then work on fixing them by learning correct forms and using
them in your day to day interactions to stabilize them in your mind.

 Find, download, and use a voice recognition app. For example, a notes
app that writes down your voice commands (converts voice to text).
This will give you an estimate of how much of your speaking is
understandable (and so markable) by PTE voice recognition program. Use
the app to practice and get better at it.

 For standard practice material, download Pearson PTE Official Practice

App and offline practice test. You can find it under “resources” here:
https://pearsonpte.com/preparation/resources/

www.udemy.com/course/pte-academic-mastering-reading-score-79/#instructor-1 Sabrina Elai - PTE Reading