Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic

PTE Academic is a relatively new test of English language which is administered by Pearson Qualifications, which now includes Edexcel Examinations. This is also globally recognised and accepted for immigration and study related visa application to United Kingdom, United States.

The full examination is taking in 1 session, lasting 2 hours.

As with other English tests, the exam has 4 parts – Speaking & Writing, Reading, and Listening. There are 3 sections in the exam, with 20 questions.

Again, an important reminder – at home online version of the test is not accepted for visa or immigration applications. The test must be taken at an authorised testing centre.

EXAM FORMAT

Part 1: Speaking & Writing (54 – 67 minutes)

Speaking:

As with other examinations, this sections tests and evaluates the candidate’s speech fluency, retelling skills, reading comprehension and translation. The first part includes speaking about candidate’s personal information, which then followed by reading a short sentence aloud.

The next two sections deal with describing and image and re-telling a lecture. With the final section relating to answering a short question based on a topic.

Writing:

This consists of 2 sections. The first section requires the candidate to write a short piece of text up to 300 words in 10 minutes. The second section involves writing a short essay between 200 -300 words on a given topic in 20 minutes.

Part 2: Reading (29 – 30 minutes)

This section has 5 parts. The first part consists of fill-in-the-blank in a piece of text, using a drop-down list for selection. The second section has multiple choice questions based on a reading text up to 300 words.

The third part requires the candidate to “reorder” or place the paragraphs in correct order of fluency, based on reading text up to 150 words. The fourth part again has fill-in-the-blanks which requires the candidate to drag and drop the correct word, based on a piece of text up to 80 words. The fifth and final part is a multiple-choice question based on a reading text of up to 300 words.

Part 3: Listening (30 – 43 minutes)

This section has 8 parts and one of the longest parts of the test. The first part requires the candidate to produce a written summary between 50-70 words, based on an audio between 60-90 seconds. The second part requires the candidate to answer a series of multiple-choice questions based on an audio ranging from 40-90 seconds.

The third part contains fill-in-the-blank questions based on an audio ranging from 30-60 seconds. The fourth part is about highlighting the correct summary based on an audio ranging from 30-90 seconds. The fifth part requires the candidate to select a single right answer, based on multiple-choice questions, based on an audio between 30-90 seconds.

The sixth part requires the candidate to select a missing word based on a recording ranging from 20-70 seconds. The seventh part is about highlighting incorrect words based on an audio recording between 15-50 seconds. The final eighth part requires the candidate to produce a written piece of text based on a dictation ranging from 3-5 seconds.