Crack PTE Academic in style! Part 3— Writing
Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
— Mark Twain
In part 1 and 2 of this series, we looked at the Speaking and Reading section in detail, if you want to check please check here; speaking blog and reading blog.
In this part, I will be sharing various tips and strategies to conquer the Writing section of the PTE-Academic Exam.
In March 2022, I took two versions of the PTE-Academic exam, the Regular and the UKVI version, and scored 82 and 81 in the Writing section, respectively.
Why I took both variants of exams, well that’s for fulfil visa/immigration requirements for two different countries.
Useful pointers and tips for Writing:
There are 6 question types that contribute to Writing but as mentioned in the first blog that each section might also derive it’s score from other sections. In fact, writing section derives grater share of its scoring from other sections.
Basically the tasks that contribute to Writing section in order of their contribution to scores are listed below:
1. Write from Diction — This is considered as king of tasks in Listening and Writing section. The task, though from from Listening section, also contributes roughly 25% to the Writing section.
Strategy:
✤ Visualisation helped me a lot in remembering the context of the sentence.
✤ Practicing common sentences, especially from university, college, office settings, appears very frequently in this task.
✤ Practice medium to complex spoken sentences, in different English accents and sometimes with backgrounds sounds, to train your ears and mind, to understand the sentences during the exam. It is easy to write the sentence if you have understood it in the first place.
✤ If you don’t remember a word or not sure of singular or plural subject, you can write both variants, seems the software only accepts the correct version while grading the response. This happened with me and saw this has happened with others as well as I read from other exam-takers reviews.
2. Reading and Writing Fill in the Blanks is a task from Reading section and it contributes 20%-22% to the Writing section. Hence, this is a important task for Writing section and it needs good amount of practice if you are not a avid reader of diverse texts.
Strategy:
✤ I think the key here is to start building a list of words you are usually seen or heard together like lethal combination or collateral damage. For this task reading diverse texts can help, honestly this takes time and there is no shortcut to it or at least I am not aware of one.
3. Summarise Spoken Text — This is an important task for writing section. In this task, you will hear an academic recording of up to 40–90 seconds. You will have 10 minutes to write a summary of the lecture between 50–70 words. Any time saved on this task will not be rolled over to other tasks.
Strategy:
✤ Please utilise complete 10 minutes allotted for this task.
✤ Please make sure you spend at least 2 mins towards the end to review your response for any spelling, grammar or vocabulary errors.
✤ Please proof-read before submitting it.
4. Summarise Written Text — This is an important task for writing section which also contributes to reading section. In this you will see an passage, usually academic, on your screen. You will have 10 minutes to write a summary of the between 50–70 words. Any time saved on this task will not be rolled over to other tasks.
Strategy:
✤ Please utilise complete 10 minutes allotted for this task.
✤ Please make sure you spend at least 2 mins towards the end to review your response for any spelling, grammar or vocabulary errors.
✤ Please proof-read before submitting it.
✤ You can create a template and stick to it. There are tons of templates on internet or you can check a sample template from Github in useful resources section.
5. Listening Fill in the Blanks: This is important for both listening and writing section. You get around 2–3 of these in your exam where each question will have around 4–5 blanks. Essentially, you listen to a recording while its transcript is displayed on the screen. However, several words in the transcript are missing, represented by blanks. Your task is to fill in these blanks based on what you hear in the recording.
Strategy:
✤ Make sure that you skim through the transcript in front of you before the recording plays in your prep time — 3–5 seconds typically.
✤ Your eyes should be on screen and moving through the passage, while you make note in your notepad without looking ta it, one startegy is write vertically. Please do not type the answers while the recording is playing, as there is a risk of you missing out on other blanks.
✤ Listen carefully for ‘s’ and ‘ed’ — if not sure please read the sentence to check if it is grammatically correct.
✤ If there is any proper noun or any blank after the full stop, make sure you start with the capital alphabet. Though this is normal usuage but can get missed due to the exam nerves.
✤ It again goes without saying that please proofread your responses before moving ahead.
6. Essay — This task contributes to somewhere 12% to the Writing score. This is another important task and most people are out of practice when it comes to writing essays.
Strategy:
✤ You can create a template for yourself and stick to it . There are many templates floating on internet or you can check a sample template from Github in useful resources section.
Please note that template itself is not sufficient for help you getting your desired score but if you add right and meaningful keywords, that too without grammar or vocabulary mistakes, it can surely make your job of getting desired score much easier.
Frequently asked questions
Q: I get really good scores in other sections but Writing scores are not improving?
A: As Writing scores derives significant weight from Write from Diction task from Listening section and Reading and Writing Blanks from Reading section, focussing on these two tasks alone can improve scores in Writing section dramatically.
If this blogs helps you, I will appreciate if you can pass this information along so that someone else can benefit. If you have a specific question, you can comment and I will try my best to answer that.
You can read my other blogs here or connect with me on LinkedIn.
Useful resources
- Sample templates
- Official PTE preparation test
- My PTE Speaking, Reading and Listening blogs
Disclaimer: Above information is based on my personal experiences so please use discretion to see if what works for you.
