This practice test covers all three PTE Core parts and most scored task types, with the real timings and word limits. The Listening items appear as transcripts so it works without audio, which trains the technique but not the processing speed — add audio practice separately for that.
Work it under time. The error diagnosis table at the end is the point of the exercise, and it only works if the attempt was timed.
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| Section | Tasks here | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Part 1 | Read Aloud, Respond to a Situation, Summarize Written Text, Write Email | 25 min |
| Part 2 | Reading and Writing FIB, MC Multiple, Reorder, FIB, MC Single | 20 min |
| Part 3 | Summarize Spoken Text, MC Multiple, FIB, Select Missing Word, Highlight Incorrect Words, Write from Dictation | 20 min |
Text up to 60 words. You would get 30 to 40 seconds to prepare. Mark your phrase breaks, then read it aloud once, recorded.
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Consolidation centres sit at the edge of a controlled delivery zone, where parcels from several carriers are combined and taken in by a single vehicle. The engineering is straightforward. The difficulty is commercial, because carriers compete on delivery speed and are reluctant to hand the final leg to a shared operator. |
| Self-check | Target |
|---|---|
| Did you pause at the commas and full stops rather than mid-phrase? | Yes |
| Did you finish the whole text? | Yes — an unfinished reading loses content marks |
| Did you restart or repeat a word? | No — oral fluency is scored |
| Did you stress the contrast in “straightforward / commercial”? | Yes |
20 seconds to prepare, 40 seconds to speak.
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You arranged to help a colleague with a report this afternoon, but a delivery problem means you now have to be at the warehouse. Speak to your colleague. |
Model response
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“Dana, I am really sorry — I am going to have to let you down this afternoon. There is a problem with the Rotterdam consignment and I need to be at the warehouse from two. I know I said I would go through the report with you today. Could we do it first thing tomorrow instead? I will come in at eight if that helps, and I can look at the figures tonight so I arrive with something useful rather than starting from scratch. Again, I am sorry to change this so late.” |
| What it does |
|---|
| Apologises in the first three words — the situation is a cancellation |
| Gives the reason in one sentence, not three |
| Offers a specific alternative with a time |
| Adds one concrete extra offer |
| Closes by acknowledging the inconvenience |
10 minutes. Write 25 to 50 words.
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Employers fund considerably more training than a decade ago, though the motive is retention rather than generosity: staff who receive training stay longer, and replacing an experienced employee costs several times the price of a course. There is, however, a persistent mismatch. Firms prefer training specific to their own systems, because it contributes immediately to productivity. Employees prefer transferable qualifications, which are more valuable precisely because they are portable. This tension accounts for the fact that so much corporate training is compulsory rather than requested, and it explains why take-up of voluntary schemes is often lower than the budget assumes. |
Model answer (38 words)
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Employers now fund training mainly to retain staff rather than from generosity, but a mismatch persists: firms want system-specific courses while employees want portable qualifications, which explains why corporate training is usually compulsory and voluntary schemes are under-used. |
| Check | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Word count | 25-50 — this is 38 |
| Sentences | One or more, grammatical |
| Content | Main claim plus the mismatch and its consequence |
| Omitted | The cost comparison and the productivity mechanism — correct at this length |
9 minutes. Write 50 to 120 words.
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A training course you booked has been rescheduled to a date you cannot attend. Write to the training provider. In your email: — give your booking details |
Model answer (107 words)
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Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing about booking 4127, for the food hygiene course originally scheduled for 12 March. I received notice yesterday that the course has been moved to 26 March. Unfortunately I am unable to attend on that date, as I will be covering our second depot for the whole of that week and no alternative cover is available. I would like to transfer my place to the April session rather than cancel, if one is running. If there is no April date, I would prefer a refund rather than a credit note. Please let me know which is possible. Yours faithfully, |
| Prompt point | Covered in |
|---|---|
| Booking details | Paragraph 1 — reference number, course, original date |
| Why the new date fails | Paragraph 2 — specific reason |
| What you want | Paragraph 3 — first preference and fallback |
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Commercial landlords spent a decade assuming demand for office space would return to its previous level. That assumption now looks (1) ___, and the market has begun to divide rather than recover. Well-connected refurbished buildings let at or above previous rents, (2) ___ older stock in secondary locations struggles. The result is that headline vacancy figures (3) ___ a market no individual building is in, and lenders who priced portfolios against that average are now (4) ___ to revalue. |
| Q | Options | Answer | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | (A) optimist (B) optimism (C) optimistic (D) optimistically | C | “looks” is a linking verb, so an adjective |
| 2 | (A) despite (B) whereas (C) however (D) in spite of | B | A clause follows, inside one sentence |
| 3 | (A) prescribe (B) describe (C) subscribe (D) inscribe | B | Meaning; the others are near-homographs |
| 4 | (A) obligation (B) obligatory (C) obliged (D) obliging | C | “are ___ to revalue” — passive plus infinitive |
Negative marking applies. Select only what you can evidence.
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Rainwater harvesting is old technology with a new justification. Cisterns appear in Bronze Age settlements; what has changed is the reason for building them, now as much about reducing peak flow into drains as about supplying water. At household scale the engineering is undemanding: a roof, a downpipe, a filter and a tank will cover garden irrigation and toilet flushing. Potable use needs treatment and is rarely worth the cost where mains water is reliable. At neighbourhood scale the calculation changes, because shared tanks achieve better economies and can be sized against storm events rather than household demand. The obstacle there is organisational: someone must own and maintain the shared asset. Uptake correlates poorly with rainfall and strongly with water pricing. |
| Option | Verdict | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| (A) The technology itself is not new. | Correct | “Cisterns appear in Bronze Age settlements” |
| (B) Household systems are rarely worth using for drinking water. | Correct | “rarely worth the cost where mains water is reliable” |
| (C) Shared tanks can be sized against storm events. | Correct | Stated directly |
| (D) Uptake is highest in the rainiest cities. | Wrong | Correlates poorly with rainfall |
| (E) Neighbourhood schemes fail for technical reasons. | Wrong | “The obstacle there is organisational” |
| (F) Governments should subsidise household tanks. | Wrong | Not stated |
Three correct, three wrong. Selecting all six scores zero.
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A. That assumption now looks optimistic. |
| Position | Box | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | B | No backward reference |
| 2 | A | “That assumption” points to B |
| 3 | D | “Instead” contrasts with the failed expectation |
| 4 | C | “The result” follows from the division in D |
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Beavers were hunted to extinction in Britain by the sixteenth century. Their (1) ___ four hundred years later has been welcomed by flood managers, because a cascade of dams (2) ___ water during a storm and releases it slowly. Where farmland lies at the same level as a dammed stream, the raised water table can (3) ___ fields, and the costs fall on the landowner while the benefits (4) ___ to communities downstream. Pool: accrue · return · stores · waterlog · departure · consumes · drain · attribute |
| Gap | Answer | Distractor |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | return | departure — opposite meaning |
| 2 | stores | consumes — contradicts “releases it” |
| 3 | waterlog | drain — opposite effect |
| 4 | accrue | attribute — wrong construction |
MC Single Answer. What is the main point of the passage above?
| Option | Verdict |
|---|---|
| (A) Beaver dams remove sediment from rivers. | Wrong — not mentioned here |
| (B) Beaver reintroduction brings a flood benefit whose costs and benefits fall on different people. | Correct |
| (C) Farmers oppose beaver reintroduction on principle. | Wrong — overstated |
| (D) Beavers were hunted for their fur. | Wrong — true elsewhere, not stated here |
8 minutes. Write 20 to 30 words.
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Transcript “Salt marsh sits between land and sea, flooded and drained twice a day. It slows waves, so less energy reaches the sea wall. It traps sediment and gains height, which lets it keep pace with sea level rise — though only where sediment supply holds up, and upstream dams have reduced it in many estuaries. It stores carbon, but only while it stays wet. The main threat is coastal squeeze: the marsh would move landward as the sea rises, but a sea wall stops it.” |
Model answer (27 words)
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Salt marsh reduces wave energy, traps sediment and stores carbon, but sea walls prevent it migrating inland as sea level rises, so coastal squeeze eventually destroys it. |
MC Multiple Answers on the transcript above. Negative marking applies.
| Option | Verdict |
|---|---|
| (A) Marsh vegetation reduces wave energy reaching sea walls. | Correct |
| (B) Upstream dams have reduced sediment supply in many estuaries. | Correct |
| (C) Salt marsh always keeps pace with sea level rise. | Wrong — conditional in the recording |
| (D) Sea walls prevent marshes moving inland. | Correct |
| (E) Marshes store carbon even when drained. | Wrong — reversed |
Listening Fill in the Blanks. “It traps (1) ___ and gains height… It stores (2) ___, but only while it stays (3) ___.”
| Gap | Answer |
|---|---|
| 1 | sediment |
| 2 | carbon |
| 3 | wet |
Select Missing Word. “…the marsh would move landward as the sea rises, but a sea wall stops it, so the marsh is compressed against the wall and eventually [BEEP].”
| Option | Verdict |
|---|---|
| (A) lost | Correct — the compression leads to loss |
| (B) restored | Wrong — reverses the direction |
| (C) drained | Wrong — a different mechanism |
| (D) measured | Wrong — unconnected |
Highlight Incorrect Words. Printed: “Salt march sits between land and sea, flooded and drained twice a day. It slows waves, so less energy reaches the sea wall. It trapped sediment and gains height.”
| Printed | Spoken | Click? |
|---|---|---|
| march | marsh | Yes |
| reaches | reaches | No |
| trapped | traps | Yes |
| # | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | The maintenance team will inspect the equipment on Thursday morning. |
| 2 | All expense claims must be submitted within thirty days of travel. |
| 3 | Preliminary findings suggest a substantial improvement in accuracy. |
| 4 | Access to the building is restricted to authorised personnel only. |
| 5 | The correlation between the two variables was surprisingly weak. |
Score each by counting the words you produced correctly, not by whether the sentence was perfect. That is how the task itself scores.
| Pattern in your errors | What it means | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| A word limit breached | Rule knowledge, not English | Memorise 25-50, 50-120, 20-30 today |
| Marks lost to over-selection on Multiple Answers | Discipline, not comprehension | Enforce the evidence rule in every practice set |
| Prompt points missing in Write Email | Reading the prompt, not writing | Number the points and tick them before submitting |
| Fill in the Blanks errors clustered on prepositions | Closed rule set not yet automatic | Drill the preposition tables |
| Fill in the Blanks errors on near-synonyms | Collocation, not grammar | Drill the collocation list |
| Write from Dictation words missed at the end of sentences | Typing full words during the audio | Shorthand first, expand after |
| Highlight Incorrect Words clicks both missed and excessive | Pacing with the speaker | Practise following the text at audio speed only |
| Summary too long | Compression, not comprehension | Drill the compression verbs |
| Errors spread evenly across everything | Vocabulary coverage | Work the vocabulary sets before more practice tests |
Seven of these nine are not English problems. They are rule, discipline or technique problems, and each has a fix measured in days rather than weeks — which is why the diagnosis matters more than the score.
No. It covers all three parts and most scored task types at the real timings and word limits, but with fewer items per type, so it takes about 65 minutes rather than two hours. It is designed as a diagnostic rather than a score prediction.
So the test works without audio. Transcripts train the technique that carries most of the Listening marks — note-taking structure, reading options before playback, pacing with the speaker — but not processing speed, so add audio practice for that separately.
Yes, strictly. Word-limit breaches are one of the few pure rule errors in PTE Core, they are penalised on the day, and practising without counting is how they survive to test day.
Exactly as in the real test: select only options you can point to a line for. If you allow yourself extra selections in practice you are training the habit that costs marks, since each incorrect selection deducts one.
Read the error diagnosis table before any explanation. Seven of the nine common patterns are rule, discipline or technique problems rather than English problems, and each has a fix measured in days.
No, and no short practice test can. Use it to identify which task types and which rules are costing you marks, then use the official scored practice materials if you want a score estimate.
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