How to choose the best English test for US college admissions

Part 1 of PTE Academic includes a variety of speaking and writing question types. For writing questions, you may need to improve your skills, such as grammar, spelling, and vocabulary.

To help practice these skills, we’ve put together some tips on how to improve for this part of the test.

Grammar

To help improve grammar, get into the habit of reading something in English every day.

Create a reading plan and a reading goal to improve your grammar. Start by reading for at least 30 minutes a day.

It’s recommended that you read a range of texts that you find interesting. Also read news articles on English news sites such as:

• CNN

• BBC

• Learning English VOA

• Australia Unlimited

It is hard to use correct grammar in long sentences, so try to keep sentences short: about 18 to 30 words. You should also practice with a variety of short and long sentences.

Always remember to:

• End sentences with a full stop (period)

• Use uppercase and lowercase correctly

Try to avoid run-on sentences. These are sentences which should be cut to make a shorter sentence, or properly joined to make a grammatically correct sentence.

You can avoid run-on sentences by using compound and complex sentences, which will also help improve your score. Use commas when writing complex sentences. Some examples of the compound and complex sentences can be found through the British Council’s Learn English website.

To perform well, learn to proofread your writing so that you can complete the question types as correctly as possible.

If you can identify areas that you often get wrong, you should work on improving these areas. Ask your English teacher for help, or if you don’t have an English teacher, you can look up your common errors on the internet.

Spelling

PTE Academic recognizes and accepts US, UK, Australian and Canadian spelling. However, you should be careful with your spelling. Once you have chosen a spelling convention for one question, keep using it within that question. You can change the spelling format in answers to other questions if you like.

Vocabulary

To do well in the writing test, you need to have a broad vocabulary. You should have a good dictionary to help you. A good dictionary will have the meaning, related forms of the word, and example sentences.

Longman Dictionaries are a great resource to help you improve your vocabulary.

You should expose yourself to new words at least ten times a day to expand your vocabulary. To learn a new word you should read it, write it and listen to it many times over a couple of days so you can understand the word and use the correct pronunciation.

Another way to expand your vocabulary is to learn the word forms of words you already know.

For example, climate (noun), acclimatization (noun), climatic (adjective), acclimatize (verb) etc.

Each of the above word forms mean something slightly different, so try to learn all the meanings of each word.

In PTE Academic you will score higher points for vocabulary if by using academic words in your writing. Try to learn some of the most frequent academic words used in writing.

Also, think about using synonyms in your writing to avoid repetition of words. A thesaurus can help you find synonyms for common academic words.

The other elements of your vocabulary to consider are correct common prefixes and suffixes, which are added to the base words. Prefixes can change the meaning of a word, for example, expensive and inexpensive.

Adding a suffix, however, can change the part of speech of the word. A common suffix used is ly, which can change an adjective into an adverb (quick/quickly), ment can change a verb into a noun (entertain/entertainment).

There are also collocations, which help you use the right word combinations, as some English words just don’t work well together. To identify collocations, read the PTE Academic collocation list.

PTE Academic is not very strict about accepting only academic vocabulary. You will not lose points for the use of personal pronouns. You will, however, score more points by using higher-level academic vocabulary in the correct way.

You should try to keep a notebook of new words you learn, their meanings, synonyms, and all the parts of vocabulary that may help you in the test.

The last core skill required for the writing test is written discourse.

Want more prep ideas?

Plus, explore Smart Prep, which combines all our practice materials in one place, so it's easier for you to stay on track with your PTE preparation.

• Smart Prep is 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.

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Your accent will not stand in the way of success!

Everyone has an accent. You might even be a proficient or fluent English speaker, but with an accent, other people find hard to understand.

So how does your accent affect your score when you take PTE Academic?

Because PTE Academic is marked by a computer, it can cut out potential obstacles, such as a human examiner being unfamiliar with your particular accent.

When the automated scoring program was being designed the computer was trained using candidates from over 126 countries, speaking more than 90 different languages, so it recognizes accents from around the globe. As a result, PTE Academic’s automated scoring technology recognizes and marks everyone’s speech equally and with equal accuracy, regardless of where they are from. What the PTE Academic scoring engine looks for is intelligibility and clarity of response (not which accent you are speaking in) – did you answer in a clear and understandable way that any international speaker of English would understand?

To hear more on this, listen as one of our leading independent advisors, Dr Alistair Van Moere, a member of Pearson’s Technical Advisory Group, explains how it works.

The UK has plenty of respected and renowned universities. Most of these schools are welcoming to foreign students, but some are particularly good at providing a world-class education for students coming from abroad.  

In this article for international students in the UK, we cover: 

• An overview of the British education system

• The best universities in the UK for international students

• Some of the best unis in the UK for specific fields (e.g. law, medicine, business, psychology).

The UK education system: A quick overview