PTE Tips And Tricks – PTE Academic Exam Preparation
PTE academic top 20 tips to get a high score. In this article, we are going to talk about top 20 PTE tips from our experience of teaching hundreds of PTE students. These top 20 PTE tips and tricks that will help you to improve and get a high score in your exam.
PTE Tips And Tricks
PTE Tips And Tricks
Basic PTE Tips
1. Always have a plan
Always have a plan means don’t go into the exam without a strategy. A lot of times we go into the exam but we don’t really know or we are not clear about how we are going to handle each and every question type. We are not aware of what our strong areas are or what our weak areas are. When we do that we end up confusing ourselves so you’ll find yourself rushing in the exam and that doesn’t help get a good score. So always have a plan, you should be well prepared enough that you understand your strong areas, you understand your weak areas, you should know how to handle each question type. So you should have a plan for each and everything.
2. Use your time wisely
Use your time wisely means is that you should know where to spend more time and were to spend less time. For example, some of us will find fill in the blanks in the reading section quite easy. On the other hand, we might find reorder paragraph type questions very difficult. So then I know that I can spend one minute or even less than one minute on a fill in the blanks question but I need 2 minutes or 2 and a half minutes to spend on a reorder paragraph question. So similarly you should also know how to use your time where to spend more time and where to spend less time. This will come to you naturally once you have practiced in proper timed environments. You need to practice seriously and get an understanding of where to put in more or where to put in less time.
3. Don’t depend entirely on shortcuts and tricks
We know a lot of students watch a lot of PTE tips videos on Youtube or once who go to PTE or IELTS classes. Some people sell shortcuts or shortcut tricks. Now the basic problem with a shortcut and a trick is that it might or might not work. If in the exam you’re presented with a different type of question, a different type of an essay or an image the shortcut that you have learned or the trick that you have learned will not work. So be smart to use these tips, tricks, and shortcuts where possible. They can defiantly help if you are looking for small improvements in your score they can help. But if you want a good score then you should properly learn that how to handle all these different tasks that will come up in the exam.
Speaking PTE Tips
4. Understand how you speak
Understand how you speak and then work on the pace, fluency, and accent. What does it mean when we say “understand how you speak”. It means that you know how your speech is. You should have a clear idea of whether you speak slowly, whether you speak too fast, what kind of an accent you have and which word you find difficult to pronounce. You should have a clear understanding on this.
In our classes we worked with students we help them understand all of this. If you have also taken a course before and you were lucky enough to have a good teacher. They should have also done something to help you understand how you speak. Another way to do this is when you are practicing or you are doing any speaking task just record it in your mobile phone or somewhere and play it in front of your friend or somebody who is the better speaker or the English language. Then that person can identify your mistakes. Once you know that then you know what you need to improve whether you need to improve your fluency, you need to vary your pace or whether you need to work on your accent. So the first thing you should do is understand how you speak.
5. Don’t miss key information in images and lectures
It means that you need to learn to identify the key points. You have seen an image, its a line graph with ten different lines then a lot of times we have seen students get confused. But the point is that some of these images, some of these lines will be more important than the others. So try to pick that key information, try to understand what the image is saying, what the key ideas are, what the trends are and the same applies to the lectures when you’re listening. You should be able to identify what the main point in the essay is, what is the speaker mainly concerned with. So once you know that then you can include that in your response.
Otherwise, a lot of students end up talking about less important information, examples or supporting information etc. But to get a good score in these tasks you need to be able to identify the key information.
6. Be confident
The Sixth step in the speaking section is “Be confident”. What does that mean – speak clearly with full force and don’t hesitate, see the microphone has to pick up what you are speaking and then it goes into a computer software which will interpret what you speak. Sometimes the students hesitate or they don’t feel very confident they don’t speak with full force. The words should come out clearly so because of this, it will impact you’re speaking score to a large extent. So be confident when you are speaking don’t worry about people sitting around you. You just need to concentrate on your own exam and speak clearly.
7. Practice Daily
Practice speaking every day to improve over-time. We know that you clearly want to get your good PTE score and get done with the exam. But we can’t escape the fact that you are building these skills, so if you build these language skills properly, they will also help you later on in life. Always keep these things in mind that what you are studying, it will be useful for you throughout your life. Please get into the habit of daily practice. Speak every day to improve over-time. It only takes a couple of minutes every day.
For example, let’s say you’ve listened to a news or you’re watching a TV show on television in the English language. Then you just need to repeat after the characters or if you have listened to news reader and then try to say the same things in your own words and voice. If you do that every day you’ll see that over a period of time you will naturally improve quite a bit.
Check out more PTE Speaking Tips
Writing PTE Tips
8. Don’t finish before time
We have seen a lot of students who say we can’t write very well as we are short of ideas but even then also they will end up finishing their essay before 20 minutes. Or finishing other categories like summarise text task before 10 minutes. Please don’t do that as you need to use your time properly as we have said earlier. When you are practicing right from that moment you should learn and get into the habit of using the entire 20 minutes.
For example first few minutes for introduction, then for the key ideas, then for the conclusion and last 5 minutes for review. In review, you need to check grammar, spellings and all of that. Even if you finish these tasks before 20 minutes or 10 minutes, you can’t use this time for anything else. So spend the entire 20 minutes or 10 minutes on the task. Please don’t finish before time.
9. Learn and practice one Essay style only
Never confuse yourself with too many different structures or too many clever things. As there are so many videos on Youtube so a lot of people watch a bit from here, a bit from there and then they end up learning so many different things. So when they go into the exam they get confused as they have practiced a little bit of everything but they are not a master of any one thing. So that doesn’t really help. Just learn and practice one essay structure, one style of writing essays and when you do your practice the month before the exam or weak before the exam, just try to excel on one style. If you play around with too many different structures then there’s a good chance that you’ll make some mistakes in the exam.
10. Connect your paragraphs
Connect your paragraphs properly and make sure you’re writing flows when you are writing so that somebody else will be able to read it and understand it. Therefore it’s important that you connect your paragraphs properly. Try to use right words to connect the paragraphs. Lead the reader from one paragraph into another smoothly. This is tied to your essay styles. So when you are practicing put equal emphasis on both these things.
11. Practice Daily
You need to practice daily. Basically, you need to do small writing task daily. Whenever you seen news headline in the newspaper just read the news headline and write 5 to 6 lines on that topic. During the lunch break just pick a topic and write a paragraph on that. Once you do that again and again over a period of time you will improve a lot.
Check out more PTE Writing Tips
Reading PTE Tips
12. Read with a goal in mind
First, understand what the question is and then when you’re reading you can skim and scan as needed. You should have a goal. The goal can be that I’m trying to read this to understand the overall meaning of the paragraph. I’m reading this to find a particular piece of information or I’m reading this to cross check. It can be something which is one of the answer choices in the question. So always read with a goal in mind.
13. Draw a picture
As you are reading a text in your mind – draw a mental picture to connect different parts of the text to each other. This will help you a lot with answering the questions later on. Because you will be able to immediately make connections. After that, you won’t have to read the whole paragraph again and again. Drawing this picture will also help you understand the meaning of the text better which is very important.
14. Understand the context
Understand the context and don’t just look for words. As I have seen and a lot of you will agree with me a lot of students will just try to match words. They will pick word form answer choice or pick a word form the question and then try to match with what’s written in the paragraph. You need to understand the context or whole paragraph, you need to understand the whole sentence and not just a few words. If you will do that you’ll avoid a lot of mistakes.
15. Daily Practice
Again the fundamental which is you need to practice daily. Read a lot and read daily. Pick up a newspaper, pick up a book or read something online but always read a lot. This is like you are trying to make your mind familiar with the English language. So the more you read the more familiar you’ll become with the sentence structures, the language usage and then that will flow into your writing into your speech and of course it will help you with your reading.
Check out more PTE Reading Tips
Listening PTE Tips
16. Listen to understand
Now, this is similar to what we have said for the reading. When you are reading you need to understand the context. Similarly, listen to understand. Don’t just match words, don’t just pick words but you should be able to understand what the speaker is saying and what the purpose is. So even if the question is difficult you’ll be able to make a connection or even if you have to make a guess. If you have listened to anything with an intent to understand you will be able to make an intelligent guess.
17. Learn to take notes
You will be listening to a lot in some of the lectures which can be quite a bit. So it’s important that you learn to take notes. Now when you are taking notes don’t try to write everything then you’ll not be able to focus on what the speaker is saying, but right word is important. For example, if you hear an important word a date a time period or anything like that. So, guys, those are the kind of things which are important so just note them down.
18. Follow the speaker
Follow the speaker is a basic thing. You should never get stuck – if you are listening and sometimes you are not able to understand a word, a lot of students will just get stuck there. Then they miss out on the rest of the text as well. But don’t do that follow the speaker if you have not been able to understand something. Just move on and try to understand the remaining part.
19. Daily practice
Tip number nineteen is the basic daily practice. You need to listen to a lot of English audio. You will find them on Youtube where you can listen to all these tasks, funny videos whatever it is but listen to a lot of English audios. So that way your mind become familiar. You will get to know more English words, more English language structures and then naturally this will flow into your own speech and writing.
20. Don’t worry
Don’t worry you will reach your goal, you will get the score you need but don’t give up. For example, you’ve got only a weak to practice, you worry and then that impacts your performance. So don’t do that first of all make sure you give yourself sufficient time. So that you can practice. Once you have practiced enough once you have learned properly, you will have the confidence and then you will not have to worry. Even if you have failed in the past to get the score that you need, whether it was in IELTS or PTE. This is a new attempt and new chance and you can suddenly do very well on this. So don’t give up you will get your score that you need, you will achieve your goal, it’s only a matter of time.
Check out more PTE Listening Tips
To stay updated, like us on Facebook.