PTE Exam Pattern 2021: All You Need To Know

The PTE exam focuses on the three major components of language proficiency, reading, listening and speaking, and writing. PTE exam total marks are calculated on a range of 10-90. Here in this blog candidates can find the detailed PTE Academic exam pattern which will help you practice effectively.

In this article, let us look at:

  1. PTE Academic Exam Pattern
  2. PTE General Exam Pattern
  3. PTE Exam Pattern for Australian PR

1. PTE Academic Exam Pattern

PTE Academic is for people who want to go to English-speaking countries to study. It is a computerized exam that is completed within a 3-hour session. The children will be listening to the lecture with the help of the computer and headsets. They will also be reading the books on their headsets. PTE Academic has 20 different types of questions that include essay writing, MCQs, and evaluating information.

The PTE exam has four different parts: Speaking test, Listening test, Reading test and Writing test. The accepted PTE exam pattern for Australia is the Academic form.

To know about the PTE exam pattern of Academic, understand the test format below:

  1. PTE Speaking with PTE writing (together): The time duration is 77 – 93 minutes. It has 8 sub-sections.
  2. PTE Reading: The time duration is 32 – 40 minutes. It has 5 sub-sections.
  3. PTE Listening: 45 – 57 minutes.

PTE Speaking and Writing

In this section, the candidates are tested on the basis of their two main skills, which are spoken and written skills. This section includes six small sections that test you on your promptness over speaking and writing the exam that you would get to read for the first time ever. The time for each segment is:

PTE Question PatternTime Duration
Personal Introduction55 seconds: 25 seconds for prompt, 30 seconds to record
Read Aloud30-40 seconds to prepare for reading out the text of 60 words
Repeat Sentence15 seconds: 3-9 seconds for prompt, 15 seconds to record
Describe Image25 seconds are granted to study the image as well as prepare your response on the same
Re-Tell Lecture90 seconds for prompt length, 10 seconds to prepare, and 40 seconds to answer
Answer Short Question20 seconds: 3-9 seconds for prompt, 10 seconds to answer
Summarize Written Text10 minutes to answer to text prompt of 300 words
Essay20 minutes to answer to text prompt of 2-3 sentences

PTE Reading Pattern

This section looks at the candidates on the basis of their ability to read the English text . Candidates can get 5 points for understanding the written instructions. The section is further divided into 5 periods. Check out the segment-wise pattern for time distribution of this section:

PTE PatternTime Duration varies on the length of the Text Prompt
Multiple Choice, Choose Single AnswerRead 300 words of text
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple AnswersRead 300 words of text
Re-Order ParagraphsRead 150 words of text
Reading: Fill in the BlanksRead 80 words of text
Reading and Writing: Fill in the BlanksRead 300 words of text

PTE Listening

The listening section of the PTE Academic is designed to help you understand how to talk well in English by the candidate. The first section lasts for 40 seconds and the second lasts for 80 seconds. This section is divided into 8 segments and the time given to each segment is as follows:

PTE Exam PatternTime Duration
Summarize Spoken Text60-90 seconds to retain 50-70 words, 10 minutes to write
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer40-90 seconds for prompt
Fill in the Blanks30-60 seconds
Highlight Correct Summary30-90 seconds
Multiple Choice, Single Answer30-60 seconds
Select Missing Word20-70 seconds
Highlight Incorrect Words15-50 seconds
Write From Dictation3-5 seconds

2. PTE General Exam Pattern

The PTE General Exam Pattern is used to help those students who have done well at English learning. This is only for candidates who speak other languages or ESOL. The PTE general exam pattern also offers the four main skills – reading, writing, speaking, and listening. There are different levels for different parts of the test.

LevelTime DurationExplanation
Foundation Level1 hour 15 minutesSuited for beginners, and tests the written and speaking skills.
Level 11 hour 35 minutesSuited for beginners, and tests the written and speaking skills.
Level 21 hour 35 minutesSuited for intermediate candidates, and tests the writing and speaking skills
Level 32 hoursSuited for intermediate candidates, and tests writing and speaking skills
Level 42 hours 30 minutesSuited for candidates applying for higher education, and tests writing and speaking skills
Level 52 hours 55 minutesSuited for candidates applying to higher education or who wish to showcase a demonstrated proficiency in English

3. PTE Exam Pattern for Australian PR

The Australia PR requires certain strict regulations to be attended like attaining the minimum PTE score for Australia. To achieve the required score, it is necessary for candidates to have the utmost knowledge about the PTE exam pattern for Australian PR.

The PTE exam paper pattern for Australian PR can be explained as follow:

Part 1: Speaking & Writing(77-93 mins)Part 2: Reading(32-40 mins)Part 3: Listening(45-57 mins)
Personal informationReading & writing: Fill in the blanksSummarize spoken text
Read aloudMultiple choice-choose multiple answersMultiple-choice, choose multiple answers
Repeat sentenceRe-order paragraphsFill in the blanks
Describe imageReading: Fill in the blanksHighlight correct summary
Re-tell lectureMultiple-choice, choose single answersMultiple-choice, choose single answers
Answer short questionSelect missing word
Summarize written textHighlight incorrect word
Essay(20mims)Write from dictation

Conclusion

The PTE general exam pattern is accepted in numerous schools, universities, and colleges. The exam marks pattern of general is 75 for the written paper and 25 marks for the speaking test. To be able to excel in the PTE exam the candidates need to first know what is PTE exam pattern, its number of questions, score, and topic. 

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