Password Skills Plus study guide
Password Skills Plus · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
Password Skills Plus is a computer-delivered English proficiency test produced by Password English Language Testing, a UK-based assessment provider. It measures all four language skills - Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking - and is used mainly by universities, pathway colleges and other institutions that need a secure, externally benchmarked check on whether an applicant can cope with study delivered in English. The Password Skills Plus study guide has 4 sections and about 1,533 words.
01Reading: locating evidence and recognising paraphrase
Password Skills Plus Reading presents several texts of increasing length and difficulty, drawn from academic and general-interest sources, with a spread of question types: multiple choice, matching headings or information, gap-fill and sentence completion, short answer, and true/false/not-given or yes/no/not-given judgement items. Every mark must be justified from the passage alone; outside knowledge earns nothing and can actively mislead you.
372 words, about 2 min02Listening: prediction, distractor control and accurate transcription
Password Skills Plus Listening plays each recording once. You hear a mix of monologues and conversations - service encounters, academic discussions, announcements - in a range of accents, and answer note-completion, table or form completion, multiple choice, and matching items.
401 words, about 2 min03Writing: task response, register and controlled sentence range
The Writing section sets two tasks under a fixed time limit: a shorter transactional piece (an email or letter to a named reader, in a formal, semi-formal or informal register) and a longer discursive essay responding to an opinion, argument or problem prompt. Markers weigh task achievement, organisation and cohesion, range and precision of vocabulary, and grammatical range and accuracy.
374 words, about 2 min04Speaking: fluency, structure and clear delivery on a recording
Password Skills Plus Speaking responses are recorded through the computer, usually without an interlocutor, under per-question time limits. Tasks typically include reading aloud, short answers on familiar topics, describing a picture, and a longer turn on a given topic followed by opinion questions.
386 words, about 2 min