PTE Academic case studies
PTE Academic · Put your knowledge to work in context.
PTE Academic is a computer-based academic English test that assesses four skills - speaking, writing, reading and listening - in a single session of about two hours taken at an authorised PTE test centre. It is used for university and college study worldwide, for work and migration visa applications to Australia and New Zealand, and for professional registration such as nursing in the United States. The PTE Academic case studies are 5 cases and about 2,008 words.
1Summarize Spoken Text: Selecting What Earns Points
A candidate listens to a 90-second lecture on urban beekeeping. Notes taken during the single play: 'hives on rooftops; 2010 pilot in Paris; colony collapse blamed on pesticides; city bees forage diverse gardens; yields sometimes higher than rural; rooftop heat island; beekeepers need permits; 300 hives by 2018.' The Summarize Spoken Text task allows 10 minutes and a 50-70 word limit.
429 words, about 2 min2Reading: Fill in the Blanks with Collocation Traps
A Reading Fill in the Blanks item (drop-down, one blank at a time) presents: 'Researchers have long that sleep loss impairs memory, but the of the effect across age groups remained unclear. A recent study that older adults were less affected than adolescents, a finding that previous assumptions.' Options for blank 1: assumed / consumed / resumed / presumed.
424 words, about 2 min3Write Essay: Meeting the Word Count Without Losing the Argument
Write Essay gives 20 minutes for a 200-300 word persuasive response. Prompt: 'Some people believe university education should be free for all students.
385 words, about 2 min4Listening: Highlight Correct Summary Under Time Pressure
A Listening Highlight Correct Summary item plays a 60-second talk once. The speaker says cities should 'stop treating parking minimums as free infrastructure', that minimums 'bake car dependence into every new building', and that removing them 'lets developers build what the market wants'.
415 words, about 2 min5Read Aloud: Pacing, Pausing, and the Oral Fluency Score
Read Aloud gives 30-40 seconds to prepare and 30-40 seconds to read a passage aloud. A candidate's passage: 'The report, published last spring, argues that remote work has not reduced total commuting so much as redistributed it, shifting trips from peak hours to scattered times of day.' The candidate reads fast, runs the commas together, stresses every content word equally, and stumbles on 'redistributed'.
355 words, about 2 min