10 Tips to score individual 80+ in PTE Exam
Pearson Test of English (PTE) is an unbiased, accurate and fully automated English test that is accepted by countries like Australia and New Zealand as part of their visa application. A good score in PTE can increase your overall visa score by atleast 20 points, which is great. This test is used by both native and non-native English speakers to prove their proficiency in English (yes, even native speakers are not so good with their English grammar and spellings :-) and find it difficult to get a high score)
Now even though I was educated in an English medium school, my speaking/writing skills was never so great. English is not my mother tongue. In my view the ability of a person to comprehend complex ideas and make a vivid image of it in his mind is good enough to be creative and influence others. Unless you are in a role that requires a lot of verbal communication, I don’t see the need for a flawless English speaking skills. I mean, a musician expresses himself through his notes, a painter through the liveliness of his paintings, a developer on the efficiency of the code he writes. But its strange that nowadays the developed countries ask for a proficient level English skills for the visa to be even considered. May be its just for the sake of filtering more people from the application system, but my personal view is that it won’t attract many foreign talents.
Should you decide to move from your home country to a new place far from your friends and family is up to you. I think even though COVID separated us by 1.5m, it brought the world closer and many have realized that basic problems are similar everywhere — doesn’t matter if its a rich or poor or a developing country.
Okay, enough of my rants and diving right into the topic. My intention was to get an 80+ on all sections of the exam and I am glad that I did:
- Understand the scoring system:
There are three sections for PTE exam: Speaking & Writing, Reading and Listening.
Reading section is more difficult compared to the other two. Some people has got a false notion that not giving much importance to reading and concentrating on the other two might get them through. Ofcourse, if the intention is to get just a 60+ score this should be good enough. But for an 80+ score this is not enough. As a matter of fact each section in PTE contributes to every other section. Meaning the scoring system is interconnected. For example the ‘Highlight correct summary section’ which falls under the listening modules contributes score to the writing module as well. Unfortunately the PTE official page does not talk in detail about this but its something we should be aware of. The youtube channels that I have shared in this page does talk about this inter-score system which should be carefully understood.
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2. Spelling score does not matter
As you can see in my scorecard, I got a terrible score for spellings but it had not affected my overall writing score. My spelling skills are not that bad I believe but the low score that I got mainly attributes to the difference in spelling between UK and US English. As long as it does not affect our overall score it should be fine.
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3. Use high frequency words while writing
What I mean by this is that try to use words which are not so commonly used by non-native English speakers while writing. For example, instead of writing ‘its very important’ we can write ‘its imperative’. Another example would be: when we write an essay, in the concluding paragraph instead of writing ‘to summarize’ we can use the phrase ‘to recapitulate’. There are many examples for this. Try to identify common phrases or words that you use while writing and practice to replace it using synonyms. This will certainly bring up your writing score.
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4. Youtube
I found self learning to be very effective than spending money on trainers or training programs. There are tons of resources available free in the internet to help you get to the other side. Two of the youtube channels that I revisited many times was:
Roman PTE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqVN-aEK88-bhEA3fK4N0Ew
Moni’s channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC75E-GWY0hj3Dkt_qhZzECw
Ofcourse there are plenty of other channels as well. One of famous ones that you will come across easily is E2 PTE.
E2 PTE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvSdD8_0DAKn-ThHWhAhoAg
Apart from this, there are a lot of resources available which is just waiting for you to search and be discovered. Bookmark all the resources that you come across that you find will be useful and actively go through it.
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5. Blinkist
Now I am not a voracious reader or actively use any of such apps in my smartphone. But this particular app is good for one thing and that is to listen to summaries of books. The app reads the summaries to us and its done not by some robot sounding voice but it pretty much sounds like a real person reading out the text aloud. As a non-native speaker I learned a lot by just listening to the app. Things like where to pause, what word in a sentence has to be emphasized and in overall how to read with more life and expression can be learned by just listening to the various content available through this app.
Practicing this can give you more score in the speaking module. Note that blinkist will give you a one month free membership to their content which you could make use of for your training.
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6. Always attempt the mock test first!
PTE offers you scored practice tests through their website. This will actually mimic the actual exam and you will be able to attempt it from your home.
https://www.pearsonpte.com/preparation/practice-tests
These practice test cost much lesser than the actual one and I used to find the scoring system to be more stricter than the real exam. If you are able to get the desired score while attempting one of the practice tests, you will certainly score more on the actual exam.
I would strongly recommend anyone to use these test before going for the real one to save money and time.
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7. Teach someone else
Explaining the things that you learned to another person is the easiest way to make sure you have learned it. In my case, I was lucky to get my partner itself to explain her the things that I picked up as we both were applying for the visa together. Your partner can add atleast 5 points to your overall visa score during the time when I applied.
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8. Read everyday
Read good articles in English every freaking day of your life! Even though you never had the habit of reading in the past, this is something you should strictly stick on to at-least for the purpose of PTE training. Read anything/everything that comes your way. I made sure I read English newspaper (any news) everyday during that time.
Time your reading — Set a stop watch before you start reading an identified paragraph and at the end of it note down how many words you read in how many minutes and most importantly how much the content that you read can you retain in your memory. It doesn’t matter if you remember the exact wordings but try to summarize what you read (aloud) in your own words. Try to be as fluent as possible when you summarize. This will surely help you with your speaking and reading modules in PTE exam.
Tip: Note to mark down words that are new to you and its meaning in a notepad and revisit them occasionally (within a week itself) and try to use them in your daily practice and conversations.
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9. Think and speak in English
Does your thoughts have a language ? Have you ever thought about your thoughts? :) Try to think about something, such as describing something in your mind in English. Even your personal day to day thoughts if you try to render them in English, even though it may feel a bit weird in the beginning, it will have great influence on your English abilities.
Also talking to someone who with which you do the majority of verbal transaction on any given day such as your partner or friends can have an incremental effect on your speaking skills.
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10. Break your comfort zone and practice:
Now this one may sound a cliche, but its absolutely necessary if you are serious about achieving anything. If you think you had a terrible day at work, doesn't matter, just practice. If you think you have too many affairs that is bothering you, doesn’t matter, just practice. If you think life is not fair, it doesn't matter, just practice. If you are so tired and sleepy, doesn’t matter — practice. If Netflix is tempting you, doesn’t matter — practice. If your family is giving you a hard time — doesn’t matter. If your land lord is banging at your doors to pay the rent, doesn't matter… Okay, you surely got the gist of it, moving on.
When you practice, always aim for the harder ones. Its that feeling that you get when you find that things to be too hard to understand/follow but you put that extra effort to learn and bring it under your skill level. That discomfort feeling that you get is your old muscle cells tearing and new ones forming making you better. Don’t be discouraged! You got this! Persistence and resilience are the most important qualities you should posses to acquire something new.
Remember its not just one thing that helps you step up in your game, but its many things directed to one sole purpose that breaks your limits.
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Bonus Tip:
How you sound sometimes matters:
As this exam involves you using a headphone especially to complete the speaking section, the quality of headphones and how you generally sound may influence your speaking score. I had a friend who could not score much in speaking even though his speaking skills were good. I really think it was due to how we sound through a headset.
To sound your natural best, its ideal to project your voice from your mask area than your throat. The video below talks about this and is worth practicing it.
