PTE

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS, CHOOSE SINGLE ANSWER

This item type requires you to carefully read, analyze and comprehend the text on an academic topic and choose a single correct response. The objective of this test is to evaluate your ability to grasp the main idea, analyze the discourse of the text and understand the writer’s purpose to make inferences.

TIPS:

• Take a quick look at the questions before you start reading the given passage. This will help you locate only the information you want.
• Read carefully and try to understand the main idea behind the passage. You should be able to describe it in your own words.
• Once you recognize the key idea of the text, look for the supporting ideas and details
• Read the questions and options again, if needed. If you are able to find the correct answer, select it. Else, look for the ones that are absolutely incorrect. This will narrow your search process.
• Since the questions left unanswered are marked as incorrect, do not leave any of them unanswered. Try to choose the right option or make a guess.
• For effective time management, do not spend more than 1.5 minutes on one question

Multiple Choice Questions, Choose Multiple Answers

For this question type, you will be given a number of responses. More than one response out of the given is correct. You need to choose the right ones after reading the passage.

TIPS:

• Though it looks easy, multiple choice questions are quite tricky and challenging. So, read every given information carefully.
• Go through the questions and options given before you start reading the text
• Pay attention to adjectives, nouns and repeated words as it will help you find the correct responses quickly
• If you are not able to find out correct responses, start eliminating the ones which are least likely to be correct
• Spend no longer than 2 minutes on each multiple answer type question

Re-order Paragraphs

This item type requires you to restore the passage given in a random order in its original order. It assesses a test taker’s ability to understand the overall idea of the passage and to put them back in the right order that makes sense.

TIPS:

• Look for the topic sentence that can stand alone. Every paragraph written in a logical order begins with a topic sentence. Unlike other sentences that follow to support ideas, links, facts and other information later in the paragraph, the topic sentence does not begin with any linker and can give you the much-needed opening.
• Search for the Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives and time-related phrases. Pronouns such as he, she, they, these, those etc. will help you establish the right order quickly. Sentences beginning with Pronouns will never come first in the order.
• Pay attention to the clue-words
• Aim to spend no more than 3-4 minutes on any re-order the paragraph question

READING: FILL IN THE BLANKS

This item type consists of a passage with some missing words in between. You have to choose the right words from a list of words given to fill in the blanks. The number of words in the list is more than the number of gaps, so you will never be able to use all the provided words.

TIPS:

• Skim the text to grab the main idea of the passage
• Make use of ‘Collocation’ i.e. look for the words that often go together to form a phrase
• Search for the missing part of speech to choose the right word for the gap. Always understand the context of the sentence before choosing the word. For instance, hearing and listening infer different meanings.
• Spend approximately 2 minutes on each question.

SPEAKING

Here are some tips according to each type of question to help you prepare for the speaking section of the PTE exam.

Read Aloud

• Rising your tone at the beginning and falling tone at the end of the sentence will make the sentences sound authentic.
• If you realize you made a mistake, continue speaking and don’t stop.
• From day 1 of preparation, practice with different

   tongue-twisters every day until the exam day.

Repeat Sentence

• Listen with closed eyes and memorize the sentence.
• There is no beep at the end, so just start speaking after the clip ends.
• If you can’t manage to remember the whole sentence, at least focus on the keywords and repeat those.

Describe Image

• Start with words like illustrate, elucidates, depicts, etc.
• Notice whether it’s bar-chart, line-graph or pie-chart. Line graphs have ‘timeline’, pie charts have ‘slices’ and bar charts compare.
• Make use of the following words – on the left-hand side, on the right side, next to, below/bottom, above, at the top, foreground, background etc.
• Try finishing in 30–35 seconds and don’t leave incomplete recorded sentences.

WRITING

PTE Writing tip #1: Keep it simple.

Long, convoluted sentences with lots of punctuation are your enemy. The more you try to extend your sentences, the more likely you will be to make grammar and punctuation mistakes! The Pearson test assessors are not looking for long, impressive sentences; they are looking for sentences that are clear and logical.

Look at this example:

Although many people are in support of standar

dized testing, I disagree with it for a few reasons and I will talk about these reasons below, including about the fact that it allows students to cheat more easily and stifles creativity in people.

WOW. What a complicated sentence! The ideas are all there, but they sure are hard to follow.

Let’s try this instead:

Although many people are in support of standardized testing, I am not one of them. In my opinion, standardized testing makes it easier for students to cheat and stifles their creativity. I will discuss these ideas further below.

When I wrote the PTE exam, I adopted this simple writing style and I took absolutely no risks with my punctuation. My result was a score of 90 across all writing-related skills, including written discourse and grammar.

PTE Writing tip #2: Take the time to plan your points.

A lot of people run out of time writing their PTE essay because they change their minds about their arguments halfway through and must begin again. People often think that the best tactic is to just begin writing and get the ball rolling and that the ideas will follow. Unfortunately, this is rarely how it works and in general, creating a plan will save you from having to stop and restart.

People will often say that they don’t write out an essay plan because they’re afraid of wasting valuable time. I understand this logic, but I can promise you that it really doesn’t take long to jot down a few quick ideas on your erasable noteboard booklet, especially if you have a method. The E2Language method breaks “planning” into 3 easy steps that take less than two minutes. You can find this method in our PTE “Write Essay” webinar, included in our PTE course preparation packages.

PTE Writing tip #3: Use the “right” format.

When many of our PTE students hear the word “essay”, they automatically understand it to mean a text with 5 paragraphs that includes an introduction, three arguments, and a conclusion. They panic because they realize how unrealistic it is to write all of that content in just 20 minutes with a 300-word limit!

Here’s the thing: you are NOT expected to structure your essay this way. In other words, the standard 5-paragraph template that everyone knows is not the “right” template for the PTE essay section. You don’t have enough time to complete an essay in this style, and you probably won’t be able to think of enough arguments to support your ideas either!

So, what can you do instead?

I want you to keep in mind that there may be multiple “right” answers when it comes to structuring your essay, so here are two examples of essay structures that consistently work on for PTE:

LISTENING

Here are some tips according to each type of questions to help you prepare for the listening section of the PTE exam.

General Listening Tips –  

• Listen actively, which means learn to listen to English songs differently. Focus on the lyrics which requires more attention.
• Watch movies and TV shows first with subtitles and then without subtitles.
• Listening to new content will increase your vocabulary which will improve your understanding of spoken English while listening.

Summarize spoken text 

• Restrict your answer to 50-70 words.
• You can start by saying something “The speaker said”
• Use the provided notepad to write down the keywords.
• Close your eyes for better attention.
• Focus on the theme and most repeated words.

Multiple-choice, choose multiple answers 

• Don’t make blind guesses as this question has negative marking
• It is recommended you read questions before the audio starts.
• Stay focused till the end as the answers could be in the end