PTE
PTE academic is a renowned computer-based test of English for students who want to study abroad and immigrate to a foreign country. It was initiated mainly for non-native English speakers who want to acquire their higher studies degree from abroad. It covers and tests the four main aspects of English language i.e. reading, writing, listening as well as speaking. The reason behind PTE being such a prevalent English test is that it provides students with immense flexibility.
It gives a student the freedom to schedule their test in a very short notice i.e. twenty – four hours in advance. The students can review their result in just a matter of five business days. Furthermore, PTE Academic provides flexible test locations, with test centers spread across 50 countries and 200 locations worldwide. The cost of PTE test varies from country to country, although roughly the cost falls in the range of $150 – $220.
Exam Pattern
- - Speaking
- - Writing
- - Listening
- - Reading
Speaking and Writing :
This section of the test is crafted to observe the candidate’s ability to write and speak in the English language. This session lasts for about 90 minutes or so and is further divided into 6 sub sections. This section contains reading exercises, multiple choice questions, describing images as well as an essay writing section. The essay writing section tests a student’s understanding of the language, how he perceives the topic, what are his views on that topic and most importantly the writing skills get checked.
Reading section is the second part of the PTE Academic Test which generally lasts for 40 minutes. The main motive of this section is to get a better understanding of candidates reading abilities through written instructions. This particular section is not quite long; it is further divided into 5 parts which scrupulously check candidates reading skills.
Listening:
Listening section is the final section of the PTE test which lasts for around 55 minutes or even an hour. This section is premeditated to ascertain the ability of a candidate to understand English listening capabilities. This section is what makes PTE a bit out of the box type of a test, keep in mind this helps a great in winding up the formalities. The prominent motive of this section is to determine how much a student is able to retain what he/she has heard. This final section is sub divided into 8 parts which also includes a dictations segment, what better way to test listening skills than taking a dictation.
Reading:
This part of the test is 29-30 minutes long and it contains five different question types. Because PTE Academic is an integrated skills test, one item type ('Reading and Writing: Fill in the blanks') also assesses writing skills.
Scoring in PTE Exams
PTE Academic is scored on a scale of 10-90 where 10 is the lowest marks a student can obtain and 90 being the maximum. The students are graded among the scale which highlights a candidates ability and skills to read, speak, listen and write English language. To get a better understanding of a candidate’s strong points and weak spots the scores are offered through the means of graphical representation.
Presenting results over a graph allows candidate’s to reflect where they went wrong, as a result the candidate can improve and receive better grades in the future attempts.