Part 1: English Speaking & Writing Test Introduction

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Reading time: 5 minutes

Part 1 of PTE Academic will take 77-93 minutes and will test your speaking and writing skills.

To test speaking skills, you will be assessed on your ability to produce spoken English in an academic environment.

Your writing skills will be assessed by giving written responses in academic English using correct grammar, spelling, and structure.

Personal Introduction

First, you will be asked to give a personal introduction to give some information about yourself.

You will have 25 seconds to read the prompt and prepare your response. You will only have 30 seconds to record a response and can only record this once.

Don’t worry, your personal introduction is not scored but will be sent together with your score report to the institutions selected by you.

For the speaking and writing test, there are seven types of questions that you will be scored on. Below, we will break down each part of this section of the test.

Read Aloud

The first question type to test your reading and speaking skills will be the Read Aloud assessment. In this test there are 6-7 questions.

You will be shown a text prompt that will be up to 60 words. You will have 30-40 seconds to prepare by reading the passage. You will also have a set time to read aloud, which will vary by item, depending on the length of the text.

To complete the question, speak clearly and straight away after you hear a tone. You must finish speaking before the progress bar on the screen reaches the end.

You can receive a maximum of 3 points for the content spoken, a maximum of 5 points for oral fluency, and a maximum of 5 points for pronunciation.

Repeat Sentence

The second question type is Repeat Sentence, which will test listening and speaking skills.

You will listen to a recording between 3-9 seconds and are given 15 seconds to answer.

Once the microphone shows as recording, you will need to speak straight away and say all the words that the speaker uses, in the same order.

For this question, you can receive a maximum score of 3 for content, a maximum 5 for oral fluency, and a maximum of 5 points for pronunciation.

Describe Image

The third question type will test speaking skills by describing an image. There are 6-7 questions.

You will be shown an image and have 25 seconds to study the image and prepare your response. For this task, use the Erasable Noteboard Booklet to take short notes.

After a short tone is heard, start speaking straight away. You will have 40 seconds to answer and must finish speaking before the progress bar reaches the end.

In this question type, you can receive a maximum of 5 points for content, a maximum of 5 points for oral fluency, and a maximum of 5 points for pronunciation.

Re-tell Lecture

The fourth question type, Re-tell Lecture, will test your listening and speaking skills. There are 3-4 questions in this test.

You will be given a prompt of up to 90 seconds and will have 40 seconds to answer.

Audio will be played straight away and you may also see an image related to the audio. While you are listening use the Erasable Noteboard Booklet to take short notes.

Once the audio finishes you have 10 seconds to prepare. To complete the task, in detail, you will need to cover the situation, characters, aspects, actions, and developments given in the recording.

You can receive a maximum score of 5 points on content, a maximum of 5 points on your oral fluency, and a maximum of 5 points for pronunciation.

Answer Short Question

The fifth question type, Answer Short Question, will assess listening and speaking skills. There are 10-12 questions in this test.

Here, you will be given a prompt of 3-9 seconds and will have 10 seconds to answer the question.

You will be required to answer a short question with a clear, simple, single word or a few words. This will not test general knowledge, it will simply test your vocabulary.

You will receive 1 point per correct word. No points are given for no response or incorrect response.

Summarize Written Text

In the first question type in the writing section, you will be required to Summarize Written Text, which will test reading and writing skills.

You will read a text of up to 300 words and have 10 minutes to write your summary. You will do 2-3 of these questions depending on the combination of tasks in the given test.

In this assessment, you must write just one sentence. Try using the Erasable Noteboard Booklet to take notes of the main points.

Make sure to include the main points of the text in a full, single sentence of no more than 75 words.

You can receive a maximum score of 2 points for content, maximum 1 point for the formal requirements, a maximum of 2 points for grammar and a maximum of 2 points for vocabulary.

Essay

The last question type of the Speaking and Writing Test will test writing skills.

In this question type, you will be provided with 2-3 sentences of text prompt and have 20 minutes to answer, by writing a 200-300 word argumentative essay on a given topic.

Time management is important for this task as you will need to plan, write and proofread your essay.

In this question, there are many parts where you can receive points. You can receive a maximum of 3 points for the content, maximum of 2 points for the formal requirements and maximum 2 points for development, structure and coherence.

You can also receive a maximum score of 2 points for grammar, maximum 2 points for general linguistic range, maximum 2 points for vocabulary range and a maximum of 2 points for no spelling errors.

There is a total of 15 points that you can pick up in this question type.

What's next?

Read more about Part 2: Reading Test Introduction.

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    Whether you’re looking to create a new life down under or make your own American dream a reality, one of the first hurdles is proving you’ve got the right English language skills.  

    English proficiency exams cover listening, reading, writing, and speaking, and it will come as no surprise that it’s the speaking part of the test that people worry the most about.  

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    1. Speaking & Writing (54-67 minutes) 

    2. Reading (30 minutes) 

    3. Listening (30 minutes) 

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    1. Personal introduction  

    2. Read aloud 

    3. Repeat sentence 

    4. Describe image  

    5. Re-tell lecture 

    6. Answer short question  

    7. Summarise written text 

    8. Essay  

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    1. Complete short practice activities every day 

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    2. Immerse yourself in English  

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    There’s no need to pick just one of these ways — try out several to see which works best for you or combine multiple ways of practicing to make sure you’re at your confident best on test day.  

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    Take advantage of our preparation resources 

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