Score 79+ in PTE..
I will tell you a step by step process to maximize your score, these are the ones which I found out when I had very limited time to prepare. I had to make sure my preparation is very efficient and good enough for my dream of achieving highest score in PTE. So, I first sat down and understood what is really required and got to these steps which gave me a score of 79+ (including a perfect 90 in one section) right in the first attempt:
1. Evaluate your current skills:
There are many different skills tested in PTE, basically categorized as:
For instance, your main writing score will depend on Grammar, Spelling & Written Discourse.
So, you need to improve the Basic English skill level to get a higher score. Working on Basic English skills is very important rather than just evaluating repeatedly.
One example I can think of immediately is, how to improve your response to “Repeat sentence” or “Re-tell lecture” prompts. The method is to practice using a speech to text software. This will clearly and objectively help you in evaluating the pronunciation. The one I used for pronunciation is: https://dictation.io/speech
Using this you can practice pronunciation for questions in the speaking section. The other main scoring criteria for speaking is oral fluency. You have to evaluate you skills on all of the prompts which appear in PTE Academic and work on the ones which require improvement.
2. Work on improving the skills:
Once you know which section require more practice, you should work on improving them.
First thing here is to get basics of English right. This doesn’t mean you need to spend months learning grammar, pronunciation, oral fluency and vocabulary. The key is to learn basics which affect almost all the English skills. Just like the Pareto principle states 80% of the required basics can be learnt in 20% of the total time required to learn a language. The main thing is to know which those are and how to prepare for them. I will try to write a blog just on this topic, which is asked by many people, also that it will be useful for any of the English tests.
Second is to make sure that your preparation is oriented towards the evaluation criteria for each section and the prompts in them. Once you are done preparing on the skill, you should re-evaluate to gain confidence on the improvement you have achieved. I will give a different example here to help out with another section.
For instance, to improve your listening skills, watch some English movies especially animated ones which have subtitles. You have to choose the movie carefully so that you get the context and are able to follow what is spoken. The other option is to listen to good native English radio, even if you are not native English speaker and taking notes while doing so.
I suggested movies and radio, so that you can also have some entertainment while preparing for the test! At least this is what I had to do, since I had only 2 weeks, and that too only evenings and weekends to prepare for the test.
I collected around 20 radio clips, listened, and practiced on them.
3. Understand the test pattern and scoring methods:
It is important to understand the test pattern so that you are not over whelmed during the tests. Basically there are 21 different question types that will appear. The first one is not scored, this will help in building confidence and works as a very good starting point to the test.
There will be multiple questions in each type, so you will be answering around 85 individual questions. You can easily get through these once you know what is coming.
Now that you know how many questions and what form they are coming, it’s time to know how the evaluation is done.
Evaluations made are for:
1. Communicative skills (Speaking, Writing, Reading & Listening).
2. Subskills: Ability to identify writer’s purpose, reading text with time constraints, etc.
3. Enabling skills: Grammar, Oral Fluency, Pronunciation, Spelling, Vocabulary and Written Discourse.
There are three kinds of scoring:
1. Correct/Incorrect
2. Partial credit
3. Negative scoring (don’t worry, worst case is 0 for that particular question)
Keeping these in mind while evaluating yourself and preparing will greatly help in achieving your desired scrore.
4. Practice:
Once you have the improved your basic skills, understood the pattern & scoring methods it is practice and practice. Make sure you have the practice method for each of the skill and question listed down. Let me know if you need any particular section’s practice method, will answer them in a blog or post.
Here the other thing I found useful was to integrate some of the practice during the day. For instance, have a list of good vocabulary words and collocations and try to use them during your day. This way, it will be lot refreshing and helps mind to catch many nuances which come to rescue during preparation and test.
The other one could be writing a mail introducing an issue and solution to your colleague, in a concise and clear manner using introduction, solution, substantiation & conclusion.
These things help dramatically in preparation for PTE, also helps to be confident on the test day.
5. Timing:
If you need to score 79+ in a short time of preparation, you have to take care of time management while preparing and during the test. Basically you have to understand which questions are timed by PTE itself and which sections are allowed for you to manage. Allowing you to manage doesn’t mean you can take as long as you want, it only means in some sections individual questions are not timed but the whole section is. So, you have to make sure the utilization of time is according to question’s complexity.
There some other aspects also which you could be used during test, such as answering all questions which do not have negative marking. Answering using the vocabulary you know and have practiced, not trying complex new words and losing score. Use logic, grammar, etc. to arrive at best possible answer when in confusion.
Once you follow the steps above you will start getting ideas on how to prepare for multiple sections simultaneously. Looks like this post of mine is already long enough...
Let me know if there are any questions on preparing for PTE academic, answering during the test, scoring methods, etc., and I will try to help.
All the best for your test…
I will tell you a step by step process to maximize your score, these are the ones which I found out when I had very limited time to prepare. I had to make sure my preparation is very efficient and good enough for my dream of achieving highest score in PTE. So, I first sat down and understood what is really required and got to these steps which gave me a score of 79+ (including a perfect 90 in one section) right in the first attempt:
- First evaluate your current English skill level.
- Next, work on the ones which require improvement.
- Understand the test pattern and scoring methods used in PTE.
- Now, practice on all the skills and you will easily score 65+, in fact you can score 79+.
- If you need 79+, you should also work on the timing while preparing and answering the test.
1. Evaluate your current skills:
There are many different skills tested in PTE, basically categorized as:
- Speaking and Writing.
- Reading.
- Listening.
For instance, your main writing score will depend on Grammar, Spelling & Written Discourse.
So, you need to improve the Basic English skill level to get a higher score. Working on Basic English skills is very important rather than just evaluating repeatedly.
One example I can think of immediately is, how to improve your response to “Repeat sentence” or “Re-tell lecture” prompts. The method is to practice using a speech to text software. This will clearly and objectively help you in evaluating the pronunciation. The one I used for pronunciation is: https://dictation.io/speech
Using this you can practice pronunciation for questions in the speaking section. The other main scoring criteria for speaking is oral fluency. You have to evaluate you skills on all of the prompts which appear in PTE Academic and work on the ones which require improvement.
2. Work on improving the skills:
Once you know which section require more practice, you should work on improving them.
First thing here is to get basics of English right. This doesn’t mean you need to spend months learning grammar, pronunciation, oral fluency and vocabulary. The key is to learn basics which affect almost all the English skills. Just like the Pareto principle states 80% of the required basics can be learnt in 20% of the total time required to learn a language. The main thing is to know which those are and how to prepare for them. I will try to write a blog just on this topic, which is asked by many people, also that it will be useful for any of the English tests.
Second is to make sure that your preparation is oriented towards the evaluation criteria for each section and the prompts in them. Once you are done preparing on the skill, you should re-evaluate to gain confidence on the improvement you have achieved. I will give a different example here to help out with another section.
For instance, to improve your listening skills, watch some English movies especially animated ones which have subtitles. You have to choose the movie carefully so that you get the context and are able to follow what is spoken. The other option is to listen to good native English radio, even if you are not native English speaker and taking notes while doing so.
I suggested movies and radio, so that you can also have some entertainment while preparing for the test! At least this is what I had to do, since I had only 2 weeks, and that too only evenings and weekends to prepare for the test.
I collected around 20 radio clips, listened, and practiced on them.
3. Understand the test pattern and scoring methods:
It is important to understand the test pattern so that you are not over whelmed during the tests. Basically there are 21 different question types that will appear. The first one is not scored, this will help in building confidence and works as a very good starting point to the test.
There will be multiple questions in each type, so you will be answering around 85 individual questions. You can easily get through these once you know what is coming.
Now that you know how many questions and what form they are coming, it’s time to know how the evaluation is done.
Evaluations made are for:
1. Communicative skills (Speaking, Writing, Reading & Listening).
2. Subskills: Ability to identify writer’s purpose, reading text with time constraints, etc.
3. Enabling skills: Grammar, Oral Fluency, Pronunciation, Spelling, Vocabulary and Written Discourse.
There are three kinds of scoring:
1. Correct/Incorrect
2. Partial credit
3. Negative scoring (don’t worry, worst case is 0 for that particular question)
Keeping these in mind while evaluating yourself and preparing will greatly help in achieving your desired scrore.
4. Practice:
Once you have the improved your basic skills, understood the pattern & scoring methods it is practice and practice. Make sure you have the practice method for each of the skill and question listed down. Let me know if you need any particular section’s practice method, will answer them in a blog or post.
Here the other thing I found useful was to integrate some of the practice during the day. For instance, have a list of good vocabulary words and collocations and try to use them during your day. This way, it will be lot refreshing and helps mind to catch many nuances which come to rescue during preparation and test.
The other one could be writing a mail introducing an issue and solution to your colleague, in a concise and clear manner using introduction, solution, substantiation & conclusion.
These things help dramatically in preparation for PTE, also helps to be confident on the test day.
5. Timing:
If you need to score 79+ in a short time of preparation, you have to take care of time management while preparing and during the test. Basically you have to understand which questions are timed by PTE itself and which sections are allowed for you to manage. Allowing you to manage doesn’t mean you can take as long as you want, it only means in some sections individual questions are not timed but the whole section is. So, you have to make sure the utilization of time is according to question’s complexity.
There some other aspects also which you could be used during test, such as answering all questions which do not have negative marking. Answering using the vocabulary you know and have practiced, not trying complex new words and losing score. Use logic, grammar, etc. to arrive at best possible answer when in confusion.
Once you follow the steps above you will start getting ideas on how to prepare for multiple sections simultaneously. Looks like this post of mine is already long enough...
Let me know if there are any questions on preparing for PTE academic, answering during the test, scoring methods, etc., and I will try to help.
All the best for your test…
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