Hello everyone! In this post we will see PTE speaking tips. With these tips you will be able to score 79+ easily in speaking module. I am going to explain only on the important tips in PTE speaking module, templates and how we have to do this task in the exam using some samples. But if you want the detailed explanation, then please read my other posts of each task that I have posted. Ok let us start now.
PTE Speaking Tasks
RA, RS, DI, RL and ASQ – These are the tasks we have in speaking module. In all these tasks the score is calculated based on content, fluency and pronunciation. Though the content is not much important in speaking section, it helps to score for reading and listening sections. Therefore, concentrate more on fluency and pronunciation and at least 50% in content.
Read Aloud – 6 to 7 questions
Repeat Sentence – 10 to 12 questions
Describe Image – 6 to 7 questions
Retell Lecture – 3 to 4 questions
Answer Short Questions – 10 to 12 questions
These are the number of questions that we get in each task and the time allowed to complete this section is 30 to 35 minutes. With all the tips mentioned below for PTE speaking section, you will be able to get 79. Let us start with microphone position.
Make sure the microphone is in a position, which does not capture your breathing noise. Something like the below image. Keep it at one inch left to your lips. It should not near the front of your mouth and not below or above the nose. Test your microphone by adjusting the volume and ensure that you are hearing your voice clearly. Take as much time as possible and don’t start the test until you are comfortable with the mic. Speak some words such as hyper, fashion, exhaust, and make sure you are not hearing your breathing sound as it will affect your speaking score negatively.
Fluency and Pronunciation
To maintain the fluency and pronunciation, we should practice the below points.
Intonation, phrasing and stress should be smooth. We should raise and fall wherever required with the proper rhythm. For long sentences, we should break the sentence appropriately and stress on important words. No hesitations, repetitions and false starts. Do not fumble or stop in between and don’t repeat the words. Even if you do any mistakes that’s fine, just keep going. And start speaking exactly after hearing the short tone, not before or after few seconds.
Pronounce the words properly. You should not eat the words. Each and every word should be understandable clearly. Understandable to regular speakers but the accent can be yours. Don’t try to follow the accent of native speakers, just use your own accent. Though PTE software is intelligent enough to understand any accent, you have to pronounce clearly. Pronounce past tense (even the words end with ed), plurals, vowels and consonants correctly. Let us see each task in little detail with some sample exercises.
PTE Speaking Tips – Read Aloud
You have a maximum of 40 seconds to prepare and 40 seconds to respond. During the preparation time speak out the passage once. Don’t read in your mind because we can speak fluently in our mind but when we speak out we may fumble. So practice speaking outside but speak gently. Read the difficult words couple of times and most importantly read the first phrase once or twice in the last 5 seconds. Because when we hear the beep sound we may get nervous and start fumbling. But if we repeat something that we already spoke, we can speak smoothly. That’s why it is better to use the last 5 seconds to read the first phrase.
Try to complete the passage within 20 to 25 seconds because that is the ideal speed that you can follow. And you have to follow the same speed even in DI and RL. And don’t pause even for a second as it will affects your fluency marks. Click the next button and the confirmation message – yes immediately once you have completed speaking. You have to follow this in all the speaking tasks.
Let us quickly see one example
Trump has threatened to declare China a currency manipulator, but experts say he has little legal or economic basis to take such a step. He has also threatened to impose a tariff of up to 45 percent on Chinese imports if Beijing doesn’t “behave” a move that could lead to a trade war and damage the economies of both nations.
There is a high possibility to mispronounce the highlighted ones. Therefore, always keep in mind to practice the following in preparation time. Reading the difficult words couple of times, know where to break the sentence i.e. giving a little pause even if there is no punctuation, concentrate on grammar such as is, was, articles, past tense words such as mentioned, relieved, sound of words such as wouldn’t, would not. Pronounce as it is. Raise and fall wherever required, don’t correct the words and keep going even if you make mistake, and finally read the first phrase in the last 5 seconds to avoid fumbling as sometimes we may fumble when we start speaking the first line of the passage.
PTE Speaking Tips – Repeat Sentence
In repeat sentence alone we have to follow the same intonation and stress similar to speaker unlike other tasks in speaking module. Try to repeat in the same sequence of words but don’t correct if you make any mistakes. Split the long sentences into phrases in order to remember easily. But if you don’t remember the phrases, try to speak whatever you heard without interruptions and pronounce the words clearly.
You can follow any method either by closing your eyes and visualize the sentence, or write first half of the sentence and remember the second half, or write the first letter of each word in the notepad. Follow any of the methods, which is comfortable to you.
Let us see some examples
Physics is a detailed study of matters and energy.
This is a small sentence. The word ‘detailed’ can be mispronounced as ‘detail’ and it will become a grammar mistake. Sometimes we may not hear the ‘ed’ part. But even then we have to speak correctly. If you understand the meaning, you will be able to speak without any mistakes.
Rules of breaks and lunch time vary from one company to another.
This is a medium sentence, so break it into two.
I wouldn’t like tomato and cheese sandwiches on white bread and orange juice.
This is little difficult as this is a long sentence. But don’t worry about the content. If you don’t remember, speak whatever you heard but pronounce properly. Here ‘orange juice’ can be merged as ‘oranguice’ unknowingly and it will be considered as an error in pronunciation, so be careful while pronounce such words.
You can speak like, I wouldn’t like tomato on sandwiches and orange juice. Or you can speak, I wouldn’t like cheese and orange juice. Speak whatever you remember. However, if you split this into phrases, you can remember easily. I wouldn’t like as 1 phrase, tomato and cheese sandwiches as other phrase, on white bread and orange juice as one phrase. If you split like this, you can repeat all the words.
PTE Speaking Tips – Describe Image
Write the template in the textpad. In some centers, they may not allow you to write before the exam. Therefore, try to write the template, at least the first few words of each sentence and remember the rest. If you use the template, you will be able to speak fluently and solidly for 35 seconds. Otherwise we may get confused on what content we have to speak from the image, which one is important, and whether we are able to cover all the information. So we may end up in exceeding 40 seconds response time. So don’t speak more than what is required.
And remember that in Describe image, content is not important. As a result, whatever you speak, speak for around 35 seconds fluently. During the preparation time capture the heading, 3 words, 3 numbers and 3 colours and do a quick rehearsal along with the template. Also practice the difficult words once.
Sample Examples
List of States By Income
Here mention what type of image it is, whether it is a bargraph or line graph or whatever it may be. If you don’t know what image it is, just mention it as picture. Here the heading is ‘list of states by income’.
Words such as New Jersey, New york and Chicago and numbers such as 19000 and 17000. It’s fine even if you don’t mention exact numbers as it is difficult, but pronounce the numbers as well properly. Like thousand not thousan. For currencies mention as 20 million dollars instead of $20m or 20$m. Also mention some colours from the picture. And finally heading in the conclusion which is the essential part. Here is the sample prompt using the template.
The image in front of me looks interesting and fascinating.
Let me take a closer look and by looking closely I can see it is a bargraph.
The heading provided on top of the picture is List of States By Income.
There are some words in this picture namely New Jersey, New York and Chicago.
There are some numbers in this picture such as 19,000 and 17,000 in dollars with some colours provided such as grey, black and yellow.
Overall it can be concluded that this image is having crucial information about the topic, strongly supported by important facts and figures and have great impact on Income.
And if you don’t have enough information, try to frame whatever you see in the image and place it into the template. Let us see one sample on how to speak if the image has less or no information.
Simple circuit with light
This is again a picture, heading is simple circuit with light. You can mention the words as battery and bulb and since numbers are not there you can mention the details such as arrows, lines, positive and negative. Colors are white, black and gold and in conclusion mention the topic.
The image in front of me looks interesting and fascinating.
Let me take a closer look and by looking closely I can see it is a picture.
The heading provided on top of the picture is Simple circuit with light.
There are some words in this picture namely battery and bulb There are some details in this picture such as arrows, lines, positive and negative with some colours provided such as white, black and gold.
Overall it can be concluded that this image is having crucial information about the topic, strongly supported by important facts and figures and have great impact on light.
So this is how you have to frame quickly if you don’t see any details.
PTE Speaking Tips – Retell Lecture
Read the instructions carefully, otherwise, you may get confused with DI task because sometimes the re-tell lecture also comes with the image. Here also write the template but write it in a table format so that you can use the same template for any number of items. Don’t use any difficult words, which you are not familiar with. Use the words which you are able to speak easily to improve your pronunciation score. And careful about your handwriting as sometimes we may not understand our own handwriting if we write quickly.
Don’t capture more than 5 phrases as it may exceed 40 seconds, so don’t concentrate more on content. 4 to 5 phrases will do for gaining listening score as well. Since we have only 10 seconds preparation time, we will not be able to frame the structure. Therefore, write the phrases into the template during the time when audio plays. You can use that 10 seconds time to recall the notes that you have taken.
Template
This is how I used to write in the exam. If we write the template like a table we can use it for all questions and take notes easily. Here I have mentioned entire word of all phrases but we can’t write it in the notepad as it takes time. So for long words just write the first few characters. For example, for the words such as achievement, communities – just write only achiv, and comm, but make sure you will be able to remember those words during your response time.
This is how I have written actually in the real exam. I have written the conclusion part on the top to make sure that I have enough space if I get even 3 or 4 questions.
PTE Speaking Tips – Answer Short Questions
This task is completely based on general knowledge. But this is scored for your speaking and listening vocabulary skills. Therefore, if you don’t know the answer, simply repeat the question because if you keep silent it will affect your fluency marks negatively. We can find lot of questions in the internet. And you can practice from Real PTE, PTE.Tools or any other sources.
The answer to the questions will be either one or couple of words. The questions will be chosen like that. So don’t give any definition as it will not increase your marks. Moreover if you have doubt on which answer is correct, provide both the answers with a little pause in between. PTE software will pick the correct answer and ignore the other one.
Here are some sample questions and answers for this task.
1. What is the first paragraph of an essay? – Introduction
2. What do we call the thread in the centre of the candle? – Wick
3. What are the mountains that can erupt? – Volcanoes
4. What are the people who study history and historical evidence? – Historian
5. Which symbol is used to complete a sentence? – Full stop / period
6. Where does a camel normally live? – Desert
7. A document protecting someone’s intellectual property? – Copyright
8. What is the job title for someone who makes meals in a restaurant? – Chef/Cook
9. How many years are there in a passage of decade? – 10 years
10. What does a Sundial measure? – Time
Conclusion
Well that’s all I have for speaking module. In the entire speaking section, don’t pause even for a second. Speak continuously in your response time and click next button once you have completed speaking. Don’t concentrate much on content. If you think about content, you may lose in fluency and pronunciation.
If you want to understand each task in detail, you can read the corresponding posts, in which I have mentioned more about understanding the task, scoring structure, what mistakes we commonly do, how to practice and improve ourself and most importantly I have worked out some samples for each task, which gives you the exam like feel. Hope this information gives some useful tips in PTE Speaking module. Thanks for reading my posts.
