Free PTE Core Highlight Incorrect Words Practice

Highlight Incorrect Words shows you a transcript while a recording of 20 to 70 seconds plays. Some words in the transcript differ from what the speaker says, and you click those words.

The substitutions are not random. They are almost always words that sound similar to the spoken one, which means the task tests discrimination between similar sounds rather than comprehension.

Want to FINALLY Pass the PTE Core Test And Achieve Your Goals? Get Your FREE Lume Account Today to Unlock… ✅ 10,000+ PRACTICE QUESTIONS with detailed answers ✅ FREE MOCK TESTS with fast & accurate AI scoring ✅ Get BETTER SCORES with a PERSONALIZED study plan GET YOUR FREE ACCOUNT NOW (Limited seats available!)

Key Takeaways

• Audio 20 to 70 seconds; you click the transcript words that differ from the recording.
• Substituted words normally sound similar to the correct word — the task is phonetic, not semantic.
• Read along with your eyes moving at the speaker’s pace; falling behind means missing every later substitution.
• Click only what you are confident about. Over-clicking is the main way marks are lost.
• Do not go back during playback — the audio does not pause and there is no replay.

How the task works

Element	Detail
Audio	20-70 seconds, played once
What you see	A transcript containing several substituted words
What you do	Click the words that differ from what you hear
Skills scored	Listening and Reading
Part	Part 3, Listening
Also in PTE Academic	Yes — this task exists in both tests

The substitution patterns

Pattern	Spoken	Printed
Minimal pair — one consonant	coast	cost
Minimal pair — one vowel	reduce	reduced
Same root, different suffix	consistency	consistent
Same root, different prefix	increase	decrease
Near-homophone	affect	effect
Similar-sounding unrelated word	marsh	march
Singular for plural	trees	tree
Tense change	traps	trapped

Because the substitutions are phonetic, the printed sentence usually still makes sense. Waiting for the sentence to sound wrong semantically is the wrong strategy.

Set 1

The transcript below contains six substituted words. They are marked in bold for study purposes; in the real task nothing is marked.

Coastal salt march lies between land and sea, flooded and drained twice a day by the tide. The vegetation slows incoming waves, so less energy reaches the sea wall behind it — that part is correct. The marsh also trapped sediment from the water and gains height over time, which in principal allows it to keep pace with rising sea levels. It stores carbon in waterlogged soils where decomposition is slowly. The main thread is coastal squeeze, where a sea wall prevents the marsh from migrating landwards.

Printed	Spoken	Pattern	Click?
march	marsh	Similar-sounding unrelated word	Yes
reaches	reaches	—	No — correct
trapped	traps	Tense change	Yes
principal	principle	Near-homophone	Yes
slowly	slow	Adverb for adjective	Yes
thread	threat	Minimal pair	Yes
landwards	landward	Suffix change	Yes

Six substitutions and one decoy that is actually correct. In the real task the same balance applies: not every word that catches your eye is wrong.

Set 2

Employers now fund considerably more training than they did a decade ago, although the motif is not generosity. The primary driver is retention: staff who receive training stay longer, and replacing an experienced employee cost several times the price of a course. There is a persistent gap between what companies fund and what employees request. Firms prefer training specific to their own systems, because it contributes immediate to productivity, while employees favour transferrable qualifications, which are more valuable precisely because they are portable.

Printed	Spoken	Pattern	Click?
motif	motive	Minimal pair	Yes
cost	costs	Agreement	Yes
immediate	immediately	Adjective for adverb	Yes
transferrable	transferable	Spelling variant — sounds identical	No — a spelling difference is not a different word
precisely	precisely	—	No — correct

Three clicks, not five. The task asks for words that differ from what the speaker said, and a word that sounds identical has not been substituted.

Set 3

Home delivery has changed the traffic mix in city centres in ways planners did not anticipated. Vans now account for a larger share of vehicle movements than private cars in some districts, and because they stop frequently and predictably, their effect on traffic flow is considerably greater than their numbers suggests. Several cities have established consolidation centres at the age of the controlled zone, where parcels from multiple carriers are combined.

Printed	Spoken	Pattern	Click?
anticipated	anticipate	Tense after “did not”	Yes
share	share	—	No — correct
predictably	unpredictably	Prefix removed — reverses the meaning	Yes
suggests	suggest	Agreement	Yes
age	edge	Minimal pair, vowel	Yes

“Predictably” for “unpredictably” is the highest-value catch in this set: it is a single missing prefix and it reverses the meaning of the sentence.

Set 4

Cities measure tree canopy from above, which means a street of mature planes with wide crowns can register higher cover than a park of the same footprint planted with young trees. Most authorities rely on arial imagery, which is cheap and repeatable but systematically overcounts narrow street trees whose crowns are obscure by buildings.

Printed	Spoken	Pattern	Click?
mature	mature	—	No
footprint	footprint	—	No
arial	aerial	Near-homophone	Yes
overcounts	undercounts	Prefix swap — reverses meaning	Yes
obscure	obscured	Missing participle ending	Yes

Set 5

Contingent valuation asks people what they would pay for a park. Economists have documented systematic distortion in the answers: respondents give higher figures for a described gain than they will accept for an identical loss, and their stated amounts are influencing by whatever number the survey mentions first. Practitioners defend the method on the grounds that it captures values no market records, which is true, and that the distortions can be corrected, which is contested.

Printed	Spoken	Pattern	Click?
distortion	distortions	Singular for plural	Yes
identical	identical	—	No
influencing	influenced	Wrong participle after “are”	Yes
defend	defend	—	No
corrected	corrected	—	No
contested	contested	—	No

Two clicks in a passage where six words are marked. This set exists to demonstrate the cost of over-clicking: a candidate who clicks all six has four wrong.

Minimal pairs worth drilling

Pair	Difference
coast / cost	Long versus short vowel
marsh / march	Final consonant
threat / thread	Final consonant, voiced or not
edge / age	Vowel
aerial / arial	Syllable count
motive / motif	Final consonant and stress
affect / effect	Initial vowel
principle / principal	Homophones — only context distinguishes them
accept / except	Initial consonant
quite / quiet	Syllable count
desert / dessert	Stress placement
later / latter	Vowel length

Method

1. Before the audio, skim the transcript for topic and register. Do not try to predict the substitutions.
2. When the audio starts, follow the text with your eyes at the speaker’s pace, not your reading pace.
3. Click immediately when you hear a mismatch. Hesitating loses your place.
4. Do not go back. The audio continues and every later substitution depends on you keeping up.
5. Click only what you noticed as a mismatch. Do not add clicks at the end on suspicion.
6. Ignore spelling variants that sound identical — those are not substitutions.

What loses marks

Error	Why	Fix
Over-clicking	Incorrect clicks count against you	Click only confirmed mismatches
Reading ahead of the audio	You reach a word before it is spoken and cannot check it	Match the speaker’s pace exactly
Reading behind the audio	You hear words you have not yet read	Same fix — pace, not speed
Going back mid-playback	Costs the following substitutions	Accept the loss and continue
Waiting for the sentence to sound wrong	Substitutions are phonetic and usually still make sense	Listen for the sound, not the logic
Clicking spelling variants	Not a substitution if it sounds the same	Only click what you heard differently

FAQ

What is PTE Core Highlight Incorrect Words?

A Part 3 Listening task where a recording of 20 to 70 seconds plays while you read a transcript containing substituted words. You click the words that differ from what the speaker says, and it scores both Listening and Reading.

Are wrong clicks penalised?

Incorrect clicks count against you on this task, which is why over-clicking is the most common way marks are lost. Click only the mismatches you actually heard, not every word that looks slightly odd.

How are the incorrect words chosen?

Almost always phonetically — a word that sounds similar to the spoken one. That includes minimal pairs such as threat and thread, near-homophones such as principle and principal, and changed endings such as traps and trapped. The printed sentence usually still makes sense.

Should I read at my own pace or the speaker’s?

The speaker’s. Reading ahead means you arrive at a word before hearing it and cannot check it; reading behind means you hear words you have not reached. Both cost substitutions later in the passage.

What if I lose my place?

Find the speaker’s current position and continue from there, accepting the words you missed. Going back while the audio runs typically costs more substitutions than it recovers.

Is this task in PTE Academic too?

Yes, Highlight Incorrect Words appears in both PTE Core and PTE Academic. The task PTE Core does not have is Highlight Correct Summary, which is Academic only.

Related practice resources

• PTE Core Listening Fill in the Blanks
• PTE Core Select Missing Word practice
• PTE Core Write From Dictation practice

Want to FINALLY Pass the PTE Core Test And Achieve Your Goals? Get Your FREE Lume Account Today to Unlock… ✅ 10,000+ PRACTICE QUESTIONS with detailed answers ✅ FREE MOCK TESTS with fast & accurate AI scoring ✅ Get BETTER SCORES with a PERSONALIZED study plan GET YOUR FREE ACCOUNT NOW (Limited seats available!)