5 common PTE mistakes - and how your students can avoid them

Reading time: 7 minutes

Learning from our mistakes is one of the best ways to improve. This is also true for anyone who is preparing for an English language proficiency exam, like PTE Academic.  

 In this post, we’ll look at five common PTE Academic errors test takers make, and how you can help your students to avoid these mistakes when they are sitting their exam.  

1. Reading: reordering paragraphs

In the PTE Academic reading section, test takers are asked to reorder paragraphs taken from an academic text. They see one panel on the screen with a number of sentences in the wrong order, and need to drag these sentences to a second panel in the correct order. This activity tests how well test-takers can understand the structure of a written text in English.  

However, many people struggle with this. They don’t pay attention to language clues such as linking words or sentences that open with an introductory statement. These are all things that allow texts to follow a cohesive pattern.  

Image - reordering paragraph

Check out our Instagram page for activities like this to help students prepare for their PTE exam! 

To help students avoid this mistake, it’s important to teach them about linking words, opening and concluding statements, and how to give opinions or examples in English. You can also have students practice reordering paragraphs in class. For example: 

  • Bring in some news articles, blog posts, or short academic texts  

  • Cut each one up into a number of paragraphs and mix up the order  

  • Put students in groups and have them reorder the paragraphs 

  • When complete, ask students to read the reordered text aloud and have them explain why they chose this order, focusing on the language clues.  

2. Listening: summarize a spoken text 

One of the listening tasks requires candidates to summarize a spoken text. The objective of this is to test how well students can understand the main ideas of a lecture and how well they can summarize those ideas.  

Students listen to an audio recording, and can take notes while listening. They then have 10 minutes to write a 50-70 word summary of the audio. For this task, they’re judged on both the quality of their writing and how well their response presents the key points from the lecture.  

However, test takers often simply copy what they heard in the audio, word for word. This shows they have recognized and understood the words within the audio. But it doesn’t represent their ability to summarize in their own words, using a range of vocabulary and grammatical structures.  

In order to get a good score, candidates must paraphrase as much of the listening material as possible. To help them achieve this, you can try the following in class:  

  • Choose a short video to watch, such as a Ted Talk. If it’s only a few minutes long, play it twice so they have a better understanding of the ideas. 

  • Ask students to work in pairs to take notes and paraphrase the key points of the video. The pair that uses the most new vocabulary and synonyms in their summary will win.  

  • Have the pairs present their summary to the rest of the class, give feedback, and select a winning pair.  

3. Speaking: describe an image 

One of the PTE Speaking tasks calls for candidates to describe a picture. The aim of this exercise is to test students’ ability to explain what they see - using their own words - in a graph, chart, map, table or picture.   

Students have 25 seconds to look at an image on the screen and think about what they’re going to say. Then, they have 15 seconds more to describe the image out loud. The microphone automatically turns off after 40 seconds.  

A common mistake that candidates make here is that they memorize a response to images they have seen when preparing for the exam. This often means they don’t actually describe the image they’ve seen in front of them. When this happens, they usually get a very low score, or even a zero.  

Students may do this if they don’t feel confident with their level of vocabulary. To help them avoid making this mistake, practice describing a range of images in class. Have students record themselves doing the task. Then listen back and identify areas where students can improve and note down any gaps in vocabulary which can then be taught in future classes.  

Image- Describe image

Check out our Instagram page for images like this to help students prepare for their PTE exam! 

4. Writing: writing an essay   

There are two PTE writing tasks to complete in the exam. One of these involves writing an essay, which tests candidates’ ability to write a short, persuasive or argumentative piece.  

Test-takers are given a short written prompt asking them to agree or disagree, state their opinion, or comment on a situation or problem. The response is judged on how well they’re able to develop a position, organize their ideas, present supporting details and write with a high level of academic English. They must write between 200 and 300 words in 20 minutes.  

Image - Write essay

Check out our Instagram page and discover more essay questions to help students prepare for their PTE exam! 

One big mistake? Test-takers often do not follow the word count. The essay score guide states that if they write fewer than 120 words or more than 380 words, their answer will be scored a zero. 

One way to help students prepare for this is by getting them to practice writing the essay under timed conditions. When finished, have them swap their essays with another student and ask them to total each other’s word counts before handing them in.  

Read more tips for the Writing Essay task.  

5. Not checking answers  

Apart from the task-related mistakes, candidates can often make, the biggest problem that we see are simple errors in written answers. This may be because the candidate has not checked over their work before moving on to the next task.  

Before moving on to a new question, it is vital that test-takers spend a few seconds proofreading their answers. By doing this, they may avoid simple errors in spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, or grammar. Furthermore, it gives them time to check that they’ve completed all the information set out in the question.  

To help students get used to doing this, you could have them proofread each other’s written work in class. They can then provide feedback to the other student and work together to correct the errors. Another idea is to create your own short text with a number of spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes in it. Tell students that there are X amount of errors in the text, and that they need to work in pairs to find and correct them.  

This way, they’ll train themselves to proofread their work for any small mistakes that could affect their overall PTE score.  

Discover more resources to help you teach PTE!

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    What PTE Academic score will I need to study in the UK?

    By PTE Author
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    Are you thinking about studying in the UK? If so, you’re not alone. Each year, over 500,000 international students enrolled at a UK university. In fact, after the United States, the UK is the second most popular destination for higher education students.  

    UK universities are renowned for excellent teaching and cutting-edge research, and UK degrees are highly valued by academics and employers worldwide. But to study there, you’ll need to demonstrate you have an appropriate level of English.  

    Our PTE Academic secure language test is accepted by nearly every university in the UK – as well as for all immigration applications. So, what score will you need to earn a spot in a university? Let’s find out:  

    What it’s like to study in the UK

    When it comes to world rankings, UK universities consistently perform well. According to this year’s QS World University Rankings, four of the top 10 universities around the globe are located in the UK.  

    Going to a UK university isn’t just a good move as far as your education goes. It’s also a great way to immerse yourself in a new culture and meet lots of different people.  

    The UK is small, but it’s also very diverse. This means your student experience will be quite different, depending on whether you choose to study in a big multicultural city like London or Glasgow, or a smaller university town like St. Andrews or Exeter.  

    The amount of money you’ll need to study in the UK will also vary. Student fees differ from institution to institution. At the same time, your accommodation and day-to-day living expenses will depend on where your university is located.  

    Check out our guide on the cost of living in the UK.

    English language requirements  

    To secure a student visa and attend a UK university, you’ll need to prove you have the English speaking, reading, writing and listening skills needed to succeed in your studies.

    The PTE Academic English test is accepted by 99% of universities across the UK.

    Still, each has slightly different entry requirements. But as a general UK government rule, for programs below degree level – such as a  foundation program – you will need to demonstrate a CEFR B1 level of English. For programs at degree level and above, you will need to demonstrate CEFR B2 level of English.

    How does PTE Academic scoring work? 

    PTE Academic provides transparent and easy to understand scoring. After taking the test you will receive an overall English score, as well as see how you performed in the Listening, Reading, Speaking, and writing areas of the exam.  

    You’ll also get a: 

    • Grammar score

    • Spelling score

    • Oral Fluency score

    • Vocabulary score

    • Written Discourse score

    If you’re happy with your results, you can assign your scores to the universities or institutions you are applying to directly from the myPTE account you created when registering. If you want to improve your scores, you can re-book the test after some more practice.  

    Find out how PTE Academic scoring compares with other English tests.

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    How to excel in PTE Academic speaking & writing with David Booth

    By PTE Author
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    We recently had the opportunity to speak with David Booth about the ways you can excel when it comes to taking the PTE Academic Speaking and Writing sections. If you weren’t able to join us for the webinar, here are the highlights from the conversation.  

    Let’s take a look at David’s tips for the Speaking portion of the test first.  

    Pitch and accent 

    When asked if the pitch of the test-taker makes a difference to the score, David had this to say: ‘Pitch is a critical part of intonation. Having natural intonation is important in order to get a good score.’ Having an exaggerated pitch, however, will not help. It needs to be natural. The same can be said for accent, and it’s important to note that your accent will not affect the score.  

    Improving the ‘repeat sentences’ and ‘read aloud sections’ 

    If you’re wondering how you can improve your score in the ‘repeat sentences’ and ‘read aloud sections,’ the best thing you can do is to speak naturally. It’s important to understand how different words are stressed within sentences, so working on any pronunciation exercises that will allow you to identify and practice this will help.  

    The scoring system for both sections  

    We know many of you are curious about how the scoring system for both sections works. Because this is such a hot topic, we’re going to run another webinar in the future that will address this. In the meantime, the PTE Academic score guide provides a comprehensive break-down of the scores for each task, so we encourage you to take a look at the website for more information.  

    Summarizing spoken text 

    We asked David if there’s any structure that test-takers need to follow in order to summarize the spoken text. The key element here is to ensure that the main context points are addressed. It might feel easier to summarize the points in order, but you should be sure to identify the key point early on in your answer.  

    There were lots of questions about the Writing portion of the test which we asked David to explain more about. You can read about his top tips for this section of the test below.  

    Standard spelling 

    Test takers were curious to know which type of standard spelling the PTE Academic follows and if they should use the British or American versions and how that impacts their score. You’ll be glad to know that you can use any standard spelling conventions.  

    Using the IELTS template  

    We know that many test takers have practiced with multiple types of tests, so you want to know if your score will be impacted by choosing to use the IELTS template or method of writing. The important thing to remember here is that no test taker is penalized. To get a high score on the test, you need to think about how proficient writers in English would present their writing. The scoring engines are trained by using answers from a wide range of students. The answers which will receive higher scores are those that will have similar characteristics to other examples of writing that have also been given high scores by highly trained examiners.  

    Paraphrasing  

    We received a question around whether or not you should paraphrase the ‘summarize written text’ and ‘re-tell the lecture’ sections of the test in order to get a better score. David’s recommendation here is that you should be able to write in the same way that a highly proficient learner of English would write. Paraphrasing is very likely to be a characteristic of that writing, but just repeating key lexis is likely to be indicative of a lower proficiency learner.  

    Keywords in the writing summary 

    How can you find keywords in the writing summary and is there a certain number of conjunctions that should be used? Here, the advice is again that PTE Academic is primarily meaning-focused. When connecting ideas, you should think about how meaning is referenced in a text. In technical language, this is referred to as anaphoric or cataphoric referencing, referencing forward or backward in a text. You can also use different nouns and pronouns to connect ideas. Moreover, it’s important to remember that merely using common conjunctions would not necessarily indicate a high level of proficiency.  

    We hope these tips and techniques are useful to you! Learn more about ways you can improve your score in the Speaking & Writing Section.

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    Speaking: Self-Improvement Part 1

    By PTE Author
    Reading time: 3 minutes

    In Part 1 of PTE Academic, you will require many core English skills to pass. It is very important that you prepare and look at ways you can maximize your score.

    We’ve put together some tips to help based on each question type.

    Read aloud

    In the Read Aloud question type, you will be scored based on content, oral fluency and pronunciation.

    As part of this question type, you will need to speak aloud and say all the words in the correct order.

    Here are some tips to help maximize your chances of receiving points:

    • Make sure you do not replace any words, leave any words out or add any. If you make a mistake and try to correct it, it will be counted as added words.

    • Once prompted, you must speak into the microphone right away and read with a smooth, easy natural speed. Try not to speak too fast or too slow.

    • Use English rhythm with chunking and sentence stress used correctly.

    • Try not to hesitate or repeat words as you will lose points.

    Repeat sentence

    The Repeat Sentence question type is scored based on the same elements as the Read Aloud question type: content, oral fluency and pronunciation.

    Here are some tips to help gain points in this question type:

    • Say all of the words in the exact same order. Do not rush.

    • Do not use the Erasable Noteboard Booklet, keep the sentence in your head.

    • It’s easier to keep the sentence in your mind if you understand the meaning. Try to understand the meaning.

    • If unsure of a word the speaker used, say what you think you heard.

    • Do not speak too fast or slow.

    • Similar to read aloud, use English rhythm with chunking and sentence stress. You will also lose points in this question type if you hesitate, repeat words or stumble to start.

    • Speak with the sounds of an English speaker and copy the intonation pattern of the speaker, but do not change your accent.

    Describe image

    In the Describe Image question type, you will be scored based on content, oral fluency and pronunciation.

    To be able to describe the image, you will need to understand it as it could be a graph, picture, map, chart or table. Always read the title and make sure you understand the parts that make up the image.

    Some extra tips include:

    • Use the Erasable Noteboard Booklet to take notes about the image, which you can use in your answer. For example, if the image is a graph, chart or table, is there a trend you can comment on? If it’s a map or picture, what are the important features?

    • Include all aspects and elements of the image in your answer.

    • Start with a general statement about the image then summarize the most important points.

    • If there are words on the image you want to use but are unsure how to pronounce them, don’t worry, just say them how you think they should be said.

    • Try using connector words to link the information you give. For example, use words such as: also, however, as or besides.

    You can receive up to 5 points based on your content. In order to score above 1, you will need to include the relationships between parts of the image, possible developments and conclusions or implications of the information in the image.

    Don’t forget to talk with a smooth, natural speed at all times during the speaking test.

    In total, there are five speaking sections of Part 1: Speaking and Writing.

    We recommend that you read more about the other question types such as Re-tell Lecture and Short Answer Question types and learn how to pick up points for these.

    Want to learn more about the smart way to prepare for PTE?

    Smart Prep brings all our free and paid preparation into one convenient place, so you can mix and match to fit your unique needs.

    • Smart Prep provides a clear path to test day, guiding you through the official paid and free resources available for your test

    • It can be accessed whether you’ve booked a test or not – just create, or sign in to your myPTE account

    • Preparation materials include guided practice tests, introductory videos, video courses and test tips.