How to find your weak areas in PTE?
Hello friends! In this post we will see how to find our weak areas in PTE Academic. So what is weak area? Do you have weak area in a language? No, there is no such thing. Because learning a language is not a skill, it’s just how to communicate each other. But to get your desired score, you need to understand which tasks have more weightage than others and some tricks and methods as well.
If you lose 1 or 2 marks in one section and considering that as your weak area and practice well in that section alone, then you may lose marks in other sections. Therefore, you have to practice all those tasks again, which have more weightage before appearing for the test again. However, we will see how to identify in which task you didn’t do well, just to have some idea. But keep in mind that you have to practice all tasks and retake the test within 1 or 2 weeks. If you give more gap, then you may need to start practicing from the beginning.
Concentrate on most important tasks
Let us see the task details in depth. PTE Academic has 20 different tasks which are part of speaking, writing, reading and listening modules. The highlighted tasks contribute more marks whereas the rest contributes less marks. Therefore, concentrating only on the highlighted ones will get you 79+.
Most Important Tasks
Now we will see the most important tasks to identify PTE weak areas based on module specific. From now on I am going to mention only the short forms of the task names. Better to know this as well while sharing the information between your friends. Next time if you feel that you got less score in any section, then that means you didn’t do well in one or more tasks in this list.
For example, if the score is low in speaking section, then something is wrong in RA, RS, DI or RL. RA affects reading section as well. If you get 90 in reading section but 70 in speaking and 65 is listening sections, then that means your RA is good. Because reading score is good, but you might have missed something in RS and RL. Similarly, if the score is low in writing and listening sections, then that means your WFD task is affected negatively. We will see few scorecards to understand this in detail.
Enabling skills
Before proceeding further, we have to understand how enabling skills are scored. Because both communicative skills and enabling skills score are interlinked each other. We will see one by one now.
Grammar
Correct usage of grammar in the sentence is evaluated. You have to know the basic grammar such as present tense, past tense, future tense, singular/plurals etc. Oral fluency and pronunciation are only for speaking section. But the tasks such as RA, RS and RL will affect reading and listening sections as well. Therefore, the flow should be smooth and easily understandable to get more marks.
Spelling
We have to precisely follow the spelling rules. The words such as absolute, tomorrow, opportunity look simple, but if we make an error, it will be considered as a blunder mistake. In addition, PTE software will reduce much marks if we make either one or couple of mistakes like this. Therefore, be careful about spellings and double check your response. Moreover, follow either British, USA, Canada or Australian English one at a time. Don’t mix them between the tasks.
Vocabulary
It is not required to use tough words at all. Appropriate choice of words to express meaning precisely in written and spoken English will do.
Written Discourse
We have to follow the proper structure of a written text, either it may be SWT, Essay or SST.
Now we will see the weak areas in PTE for this scorecard
Always start with speaking section, because it is easy to identify as it is affected only by oral fluency and pronunciation in enabling skills. As I already mentioned, communicative skills and enabling skills are interlinked to each other. Therefore, we should always check both of them to understand where we have missed.
Speaking Section
In this scorecard speaking score is 77 because the pronunciation has gone down but oral fluency is good. Therefore, you have to improve all these four tasks – RA, RS, DI and RL. As I always insist, we need to maintain same pace in RA, DI and RL. Otherwise, the fluency score may go down. But the fluency is good in this scorecard because the test taker has followed this rule. Describe Image is fine as the score is already 77. But because of the other 3 tasks, the remaining sections affected negatively.
Reading Section
Next, reading score is 69. Now see the reading tasks. For reading section, enabling skills, which contribute only to reading section is not required for the tasks as the answer is either correct or incorrect.
RA – Yes, we have already seen in speaking section. We have to improve this.
SWT – Check the writing section. The score is 59. As a result, SWT should also needs to be improved.
ROP and R-FIB – These two contributes only to reading section. But the reading score is already 69. Let us keep it aside as of now.
R&W-FIB – Again compare with writing section. Since it is 59, we have to improve this task.
HIW – Check listening section. Since listening score is 60, we have to improve this.
Now, since the reading score is almost ok, we have to partially improve ROP and R-FIB as other reading tasks need to be improved a lot.
Writing Section
SWT – We have already seen as it should be improved. Now see the enabling skills. Grammar and spelling are not good but vocabulary and written discourse are good. So we have to improve grammar and spelling in SWT. Same applies to essay as well.
R&W-FIB – This needs to be improved as the writing score is too low.
SST, L-FIB and WFD – All three are listening tasks and the listening score is also very less. So we have to improve these as well. Similar to SWT, for SST as well we have to improve only grammar and spelling.
Listening Section
We have already seen all the highlighted tasks of listening section in other sections. So we have to improve all these as well. In summary, we have to improve all the highlighted tasks, as this scorecard has low score in listening and writing sections. For reading section, partial improvement is required for ROP and R-FIBs but the rest of the tasks needs more priority. This is how we can identify our weak areas in PTE.
Let us take another example to overcome PTE weak areas
Speaking Section
In this scorecard, speaking score is only 65 because both oral fluency and pronunciation are low. So we need to improve all the highlighted tasks in speaking section.
Reading Section
Reading score is good but if we do good in RA as well, the score will be much better than this. Check the writing score for SWT. As it is 81, SWT is good because grammar, spelling, vocabulary and written discourse are good for writing section.
ROP and R-FIB are also good as the reading score is good. R&W-FIB is good as both reading and writing score are good.
HIW – Listening section is not affected by this task as the reading score is good.
Writing Section
SWT and ESSAY are good because enabling skills are good and R&W-FIB is also good, that is why reading and writing scores have gone high. SST is also good because enabling skills: grammar, spelling, vocabulary and written-discourse are good. L-FIB is also good as this task contributes almost equal marks to both reading and listening. WFD is good because if we don’t do well in WFD, the listening and writing score will go down drastically.
Listening Section
RS and RL need improvement as both speaking and listening sections score is less. SST is ok. L-FIB needs only partial improvement. WFD is good. In summary, you have to improve the highlighted tasks for this scorecard. For speaking section all the tasks need improvement and for listening section, RS and RL need improvement.
We will quickly see one more scorecard
Speaking Section
Speaking score is too good as both oral fluency and pronunciation are good. In this scorecard only 2 marks are less in listening section and missed 1 mark in writing section.
Reading Section
Reading score is good. So we can ignore the tasks in reading section except SWT. So check only listening and writing related tasks in listening and writing sections.
Writing Section
SWT – Need improvement because grammar and spelling are not good. Essay is also same issue. R&W-FIB is good because reading score is good.
Listening Section
SST needs improvement as again enabling skills is low, which is grammar and spelling. L-FIB is good or may be one or couple of mistakes could be there.
WFD – Minor errors are there. Because if this is perfect then definitely it will cross 79 even though SWT and SST are not good.
In summary, all the highlighted tasks need improvement.
Conclusion
So this is how we have to find your weak areas in PTE, but we cannot predict exactly on where we have missed. This is just an overall view based on the scores obtained. However, as I already said we have to concentrate all these tasks even if we miss one or couple of marks in any of the modules. Because if we concentrate more on one task then we may tend to lose in other tasks. Hence, we will lose marks in other sections. This is just for our understanding purpose.
After you get your result, just find where you would have missed and take some extra effort on those tasks. But practice all these tasks just one more week and take the test again. Because you just lost only 2 to 3 marks but you have already practiced well. You need to brush up once again, that’s it.
Don’t lose your confidence, hope for the best and do well in your next attempt. As I already mentioned don’t give much gap. Otherwise you have to start preparation from the beginning. Well that’s all I have about PTE weak areas. I hope after reading this post you will be able to identify what mistakes have you done in your exam. As a result, it helps to improve in your next and final attempt. All the best and have a nice journey in your future.
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