PTE Core guides

How the guides fit together

There are two kinds of page on this site, and they are meant to be read in a particular order. The task pages describe each of the 19 PTE Core question types: what it asks, how Pearson scores it, a worked example and the mistakes that cost the most. They are the reference. The method guides below are the practice: a step-by-step routine for the preparation time, a fixed shape for the response, more worked examples, and drills that make the routine automatic. Read the task page once to understand what is being measured. Then use the method guide every day until the method is what you do without thinking.

The guides cover the tasks that carry the most marks. By our estimate, Repeat Sentence, Read Aloud, Write Email, Write from Dictation and the two reading blank tasks together account for most of the points in the test, so they each have a method guide, along with Describe Image, Respond to a Situation and Summarize Written Text, which decide a large share of Speaking and Writing. The remaining task types are quick to learn from their task pages and need less method.

Using the guides with the practice platform

1. Start with the plan. The 30-day study plan tells you which method guide to read on which day, and puts the heaviest tasks into a daily core block. If you have more or less than 30 days, keep its order and change its pace.
2. Read the method, then practise under real timing. Every guide ends with a daily routine of ten to twenty minutes. The practice platform runs each task on the same timers as the test, records your speaking, counts your words and marks every word of a dictation, so the routine can be done exactly as written. Sign in with a free account; there is no card and no trial period.
3. Mark your own work against the traits. The scorer gives you an estimate for each trait Pearson scores. Use it the way the guides describe: a restart in Read Aloud shows up in fluency, a missed bullet point in Write Email shows up in content. The number matters less than which trait moved.
4. Keep the error log. Every method guide asks for one. Four columns, read on review days. After a week, the same four or five problems account for most entries, and those are what the drills are for.
5. Convert after every mock. Put your four skill scores through the PTE Core to CLB converter, then check what each level is worth in CRS points. The skill furthest from your target decides the next week's focus.

Everything here is written for PTE Core, the test IRCC accepts for Canadian immigration, and checked against Pearson's published score guide. Where we give an estimate that Pearson does not publish, such as how much a task counts toward a skill score, the page says so. Our editorial policy explains how pages are written, dated and corrected.

Speaking

Delivery is most of the score in these tasks. Each method guide gives you a routine for the preparation time, a shape for the speaking time, worked examples and drills.

Writing

Writing has the highest CLB cut-offs of the four skills. These methods are about the two things that cannot be fixed afterwards: covering the task and staying inside the word range.

Reading & Listening

Points per blank and points per word. These guides turn grammar, collocation and chunk listening into a repeatable procedure.

Planning and scores

The plan, the test day, and what the numbers mean for Express Entry.