Part 3: Listening

While you listen to the recording, make sure you note down the supporting points as well as the main idea on your erasable whiteboard.

From your notes, you can then summarize the main point and refer briefly to the essential supporting points. This will help you score good marks for content.

In your 20-30 word summary, you will be scored on grammar, spelling and vocabulary. So leave yourself one or two minutes after you have written your summary to check your sentences for things like subject/verb agreement, tenses and word order.

Use grammatical structures that you are confident with, and words that you are sure you have spelled correctly. Finally, check your punctuation: check full stops and commas, and make sure you have begun each sentence with a capital letter:

Your response is judged on your ability to understand, analyze and combine information from a lecture, and then summarize the key points in writing. You are also assessed on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points in the lecture.

Your score is based on five factors:

Content: Does your response summarize the main points in the lecture?

Content is scored by assessing if you have addressed all the key points of the lecture without misrepresenting the purpose or topic. If your summary misinterprets the topic or the purpose of the lecture, you will not receive any score points for your summary on any of the five factors.

The best responses clearly summarize the main points and condense the essential supporting points. They focus on the topic and include only key information and the essential supporting points.

Form: Does your response meet the length requirement of between 20 and 30 words?

Form is scored by counting the number of words in your response. You will receive full credit if your response is between 20 and 30 words. Writing fewer than 20 words or more than 30 words will decrease your score. If your summary contains fewer than 5 words or more than 40 words, you will not receive any score points for your summary on any of the five factors.

Grammar: Does your response show you can use grammar correctly?

Grammar is scored by assessing if the basic structure of your sentences is correct. The best responses use concise sentences that clearly communicate your intended meaning.

Vocabulary: Does your response show you can choose and use words correctly?

Your vocabulary is scored according to its relevance to the lecture and its appropriateness in an academic environment. The appropriate use of synonyms is also scored. The best responses use words from the lecture appropriately, demonstrate an understanding of the context and use synonyms effectively to show variety in language use.

Spelling: Does your response show you can use a single spelling convention correctly and consistently?

PTE recognizes English spelling conventions from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. However, you should use one spelling convention consistently in each response you give.

Please note:

• This question type affects the scoring of reading and writing.

• Your listening and speaking skills are not tested by this question type.

• For more information download the PTE Core Score Guide.

In the seven seconds before the recording begins, read the question and get ready to take notes to help you answer. Taking notes is likely to be more helpful than trying to select options while you listen, because you may not hear the information in exactly the same order as the options.

Note down details (e.g., times, places, things that happened) as well as the main points, because you will need to select more than one option:

Select the options that best match the meaning of what you heard. Don’t just choose an option because it has the same words or phrases as the recording. Several options may use words from the recording but may not match the meaning of what you have heard.

Read the instructions carefully and remember that more than one response option is correct. You will score points for any correct options but you will lose points for any incorrect options.

These include options that you have clicked on as correct but which are wrong. If you click on all the options because you do not know the answer, you will lose score points.

Your response is judged on your ability to analyze, interpret, and evaluate a brief audio or video recording on an academic subject. If all your response options are correct, you will receive the maximum score points. If one or more of your response options are incorrect, partial credit scoring applies

Please note:

• This question type affects the scoring of reading

• Your listening, speaking and writing skills are not tested by this question type

• For more information download the PTE Core Score Guide.

Read the text boxes in order to understand the main idea of each one. You can do this by noting the key words.

Next, use the key words to form an overall idea of what the original text is about. This will help you find the logical order for the ideas in the text boxes:

Every well-written paragraph has a topic sentence. It is usually a clear statement about the topic, and all the other sentences are related in some way to this sentence.

The topic sentence can stand alone; it does not begin with a linker or a pronoun that refers back to something or someone (e.g., ‘he’ or ‘this’), nor does it does refer back to information or actions previously mentioned through the use of things like passive verb tenses (e.g., ‘No link was found’):

Your response is judged on your ability to understand the organization and cohesion of an academic text. If all text boxes are in the correct order, you will receive the maximum score points.

If one or more text boxes are in the wrong order, partial credit scoring applies.

Please note:

• This question type affects the scoring of only reading

• Your listening, speaking and writing skills are not tested by this question type

• For more information download the PTE Core Score Guide

For these questions, the main part of the question tells you what to listen for. Try to understand the focus of the question to help guide your listening.

For example, it will tell you whether you are listening for the main idea: What was the main cause of the company’s collapse?

Or if you are listening for some supporting information or details: What aspect of past transport policy does the speaker mention?

Or if you are listening for an inference drawn by the speaker: What does the speaker suggest that the factory may have to do?

Or if you are listening for the speaker’s purpose: Why does the speaker talk about the fall in car ownership?

In the five seconds before the recording begins, quickly read the question and response options to make sure you understand the topic.

For example, in this sample, the question shows that the speaker will talk about the future, and the response options show you they all include the word ‘media’. So you are listening to hear what the speaker thinks will happen to the media in the future.

Your response is judged on your ability to analyze, interpret and evaluate a short audio recording on an everyday subject.

Your response is scored as either correct or incorrect. No credit is given for no response or an incorrect response.

Please note:

• This question type affects the scoring of only reading

• Your listening, speaking and writing skills are not tested by this question type

• For more information download the PTE Core Score Guide

For each item in this task, there are three to five response options but only one is correct. At the end of the recording, click on the option you think is correct.

The next recording does not begin playing until you click ‘Next’. So you have a little time to think about your answer. If you want to change your answer, click on it again to ‘de-select’ it. Then click on the option you think is correct.

Your response is judged on judged on your ability to predict what a speaker will say, based on contextual clues in a recording. Your response is scored as either correct or incorrect. No credit is given for no response or an incorrect response.

Please note:

• This question type affects the scoring of only listening

• Your speaking and writing skills are not tested by this question type, and your reading skills are only used to read the instructions and the response options

• For more information download the PTE Core Score Guide

Type as many correct words as you can remember into the response box in the correct order

You will score points for every correct word that you write in the response box. If you can remember a word but you are not sure where it goes in the sentence, use your knowledge of English grammar to help you decide:

Your score is based on the following factor:

Content: Does your response include all the words in the sentence and only these words? Content is scored by counting the number of correct words in your answer.

If all the words are correct and spelled correctly, you will receive the maximum score points. If one or more words are incorrect, partial credit scoring applies.

Please note:

• This question type affects the scoring of listening and writing. Your speaking skills are not tested by this question type, and your reading skills are only used to read the instructions.
• For more information download the PTE Core Score Guide