PTE Practice Test 1: Speaking and Writing
Part 1 of 3. Eight speaking tasks and two writing tasks. Allow about 80 minutes.
Unofficial original RCF practice material
Not an official PTE test and not a past paper. Every prompt, text, transcript and model answer below was written by RCF English, following the published format of PTE Academic. Not produced, approved or endorsed by Pearson.
Read this first - it affects four of the tasks
Record every speaking task on your phone. No website can score pronunciation and fluency the way Pearson's system does. The recording is the whole point: you cannot judge your own hesitation from memory.
Four tasks need another person. Repeat Sentence, Retell Lecture, Answer Short Question and Summarize Group Discussion all begin with a recording in the real test. Their scripts are in the last section of this page. Give that section to your partner and do not read it yourself - reading it first makes those four tasks worthless.
Keep to the timings. They are printed on each task. Going over is the single most common reason a candidate who knows the English still scores badly.
S1. Personal Introduction
Not scored. It is sent to institutions with your result, but it does not affect your score. 25 seconds to prepare, 30 seconds to speak.
Prompt: Read the prompt below, prepare for 25 seconds, then record for 30 seconds.
Please introduce yourself. For example, you could talk about where you are from, what you are studying or doing now, and why you are taking this test.
S2. Read Aloud
Up to 60 words. 30 to 40 seconds to look at it, then read it aloud once. Record both.
S2a
Rivers were the first roads. Long before anyone cut a track through forest, goods moved downstream because water carried them without effort, and settlements grew where boats had to stop. The map of early trade is therefore a map of currents and shallows, drawn by the river rather than by the people using it.
S2b
A vaccine does not fight disease directly. It presents the immune system with a harmless pattern and allows it to rehearse, so that the response to a real infection is fast rather than improvised. The protection comes from the rehearsal, which is why the effect appears weeks after the injection rather than immediately.
S3. Repeat Sentence
Your partner reads each sentence once, at normal speed. You repeat it. About 15 seconds each. Three sentences - the script is in the last section of this page.
Record S3a, S3b and S3c. Do not look at the script.
If you miss part of a sentence, say the part you did get. A partial answer scores; silence does not.
S4. Describe Image
25 seconds to study it, then about 40 seconds to describe it. Record.
Describe the chart below to someone who cannot see it. Say what it shows, what the overall pattern is, and name the highest and lowest points.
What a strong Describe Image answer does
Open with what the chart is in one sentence - the kind of chart, what it measures, and when. Then give the pattern, then the extremes with their figures, then stop.
Do not narrate every bar in turn. You have 40 seconds; candidates who read out all five values run out of time before saying anything that shows comprehension.
S5. Retell Lecture
Your partner reads a short lecture aloud, once. You then retell it in about 40 seconds. Script in the last section.
Take notes while you listen - in the real test you may. Aim to give the main claim and two supporting points, in your own words rather than the speaker's.
S6. Answer Short Question
Your partner reads five short questions. Answer each in one word or a few. About 10 seconds each. Script in the last section.
These test general knowledge in English, not reasoning. If you do not know, say something rather than nothing.
S7. Summarize Group Discussion
Your partner reads a three-speaker discussion aloud. You then summarise it in about two minutes. Script in the last section.
This is one of the newer task types. What it rewards is not repeating what each speaker said in turn, but reporting the position each took and where they disagreed.
S8. Respond to a Situation
About 10 seconds to think, then about 40 seconds to speak. Record.
S8a - You borrowed a textbook from a classmate and have damaged the cover. You see them tomorrow. What do you say?
S8b - You arranged to meet a tutor at four o'clock but you will be twenty minutes late because of a delayed bus. You are phoning the department office. What do you say?
This task rewards the social move, not just the information: apologise or explain, say what you will do about it, and keep a civil tone throughout.
W1. Summarize Written Text
Read the text. Write a summary in one single sentence of no more than 75 words. 10 minutes.
For most of the twentieth century, street lighting was designed on a single principle: more light was better. Brighter lamps were assumed to reduce both accidents and crime, and the cost of running them was treated as the only serious limit. Two developments unsettled this. The first was evidence that very bright lighting can increase glare, so that a driver sees a brilliantly lit road surface and a pedestrian standing in deep shadow beside it. The second was the discovery that artificial light at night disrupts the behaviour of insects, birds and plants over a wide area, and that the effect is driven as much by the colour of the light as by its intensity. Neither finding suggests that towns should go dark. What they suggest is that the useful question is not how much light a street has, but where that light falls, what colour it is, and whether anything is standing in the dark edge that the brightness has created.
The one-sentence rule is the whole task
Two sentences score zero for form, however good the content. So does going over 75 words, or writing a fragment with no main verb.
The safest shape is a single complex sentence joined with although, while, because or a semicolon - enough to carry two ideas without breaking into a second sentence.
W2. Write Essay
Write 200 to 300 words. 20 minutes.
Prompt: Some people believe that every student should learn a second language throughout their schooling, even if they will probably never need it. Others argue that the time would be better spent on subjects with clearer practical value.
Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Plan for two minutes before you start. Twenty minutes is enough for a planned essay and not enough for an unplanned one.
For your partner only - scripts to read aloud
Candidate: stop here. If you read this section, four of the tasks above stop being a test of listening.
Partner: read each script once only, at a normal speaking speed. No repeats, no slowing down, no reading it twice because they looked unhappy. The whole value is in hearing it once.
S3. Repeat Sentence - read each sentence once
S3a - The library will close early on Friday because of building work.
S3b - Students who miss the deadline must apply to the faculty office in writing.
S3c - Most of the equipment in the laboratory was replaced over the summer.
S5. Retell Lecture - read the whole lecture once
Good morning. I want to talk about why cities are hotter than the countryside around them, which is an effect you can measure on any clear night.
The difference is not mainly waste heat from cars and buildings, though that contributes. It is mostly about surfaces. Stone, brick and asphalt absorb heat through the day and release it slowly after dark, while soil and vegetation release theirs quickly. A park cools down within an hour of sunset. A street of buildings takes most of the night.
Vegetation adds a second effect. Plants move water into the air, and evaporation costs energy, which is taken from the surroundings as heat. A city with little greenery has lost that cooling entirely.
The practical point is that the problem is built, so it can be unbuilt. Trees along a street, lighter-coloured roofs and any open ground that is not paved all reduce the effect measurably - and in a heatwave, a few degrees at night is the difference between discomfort and danger for elderly residents.
S6. Answer Short Question - read each question once
1. What do you call the person who flies an aeroplane?
2. How many sides does a hexagon have?
3. If you want to borrow a book rather than buy it, where would you normally go?
4. What is the frozen form of water called?
5. Which meal do people normally eat in the morning?
S7. Summarize Group Discussion - read all three speakers once
Priya: I think the university should keep the late-night study rooms open. Students who work shifts simply cannot use the library between nine and five, and closing at eight shuts them out of the one quiet space they have.
Tom: I take the point, but someone has to staff it, and the security cost falls on everyone's fees. We are talking about a facility used by perhaps thirty people a night, paid for by twelve thousand.
Dana: That figure is the problem though, not the argument. Thirty a night is low because it closes at eight - people stop planning around a room that might not be open. If it opened properly and the number stayed at thirty, Tom would be right. We have not tested it.
Tom: That is fair. I would want a trial with the numbers published, rather than a permanent commitment made on the assumption that demand appears.
Priya: A trial I can accept, as long as it runs long enough for people to change their habits. A fortnight proves nothing.
Next
Answer key and model answers
Model answers for both writing tasks, and a checklist for marking your own recordings.
Part 2: Reading
Fourteen questions across the five Reading task types. You can sit this one alone.
Back to Practice Test 1
The three parts and how to sit the whole test.