PTE Core Write Email

What the task asks

A short description of a situation appears on screen, usually with a few points you are expected to cover: you have received a damaged order and want a replacement; you need to ask your manager for two days off at short notice; a neighbour's renovation is keeping you awake and you want to raise it politely. Below the prompt is a text box, and a nine-minute timer for that item starts. You write the email, fifty to one hundred and twenty words, and move on. The task sits at the end of Part 1, after the speaking items and Summarize Written Text.

What makes this task different from an essay is the reader. Every prompt names or implies a person, and that person decides the tone. An email to a friend about a cancelled trip and an email to a landlord about a broken heater are built from the same parts, greeting, purpose, detail, request, sign-off, but they do not sound the same, and the scoring is designed to notice whether yours does.

How it is scored

Write Email is scored on seven traits, more than any other task in PTE Core. All of them feed your Writing score. The number of traits is a signal: the scorer is looking at the whole email as a piece of communication, not just at its grammar.

The zero for memorised templates matters more than any other line in that table. A frame of your own, with a greeting you always use and a closing line you always use, is fine. Six sentences of filler that could be pasted into any email, with the topic words swapped in, is what the guide calls a template, and content is scored as if the email were blank.

How our practice scorer grades it

When you submit an email here, form is checked first: the word count against the fifty to one hundred and twenty target and the thirty-word floor. You are told straight away if the length is a problem. The email then receives automatic feedback on each of the seven Pearson traits, with specific notes: which prompt points were covered and which were missed, whether the greeting and sign-off suit the reader, where the register slips, and which sentences carry grammar or spelling errors. A model answer appears after submission so you can see how the same points fit into a hundred words.

The result is a practice estimate on the 10 to 90 scale. It is built around the same traits the real scorer uses, and tuned to rank attempts the way Pearson would, but it is not a Pearson score.

A worked example

A response that covers all three points in about ninety-five words: Dear Customer Service Team, I am writing about order 48213, a pine bookshelf delivered to my address yesterday afternoon. When I unpacked it I found that the left side panel is cracked along its full length, so the unit cannot be assembled safely. I would like a replacement bookshelf sent as soon as possible, or a full refund if a replacement is not available. Could you also let me know how to return the damaged item, and whether you will arrange collection or I need to post it? Thank you for your help. Kind regards, Daniel Okafor

Notice the order: greeting, reference and purpose in the first sentence, the problem with one concrete detail, the request with an alternative, the question the prompt asked for, a polite close and a sign-off. Every point in the prompt is addressed in its own sentence, and nothing in the email could be reused for a different situation. That is the shape our Write Email template teaches, with phrases for both formal and informal readers.

Five habits that raise the score

1. Underline the points in your head before you type. Most prompts give two or three. Each one becomes a sentence, and a missed point is the cheapest content error to avoid.
2. Decide the register from the reader in one second. Company, manager, landlord, official: Dear, full sentences, Kind regards. Friend or family: Hi, contractions, See you soon.
3. Put the purpose in the first sentence. I am writing to or Just a quick note about. The reader, and the organization trait, should know why the email exists before the second line.
4. Aim for eighty to one hundred words. That is enough to cover three points properly, and it leaves a cushion on both sides of the limit.
5. Keep the last minute for spelling and the sign-off. Spelling is a trait on its own here. Read every word once, then make sure the email ends with a name.

The mistakes that cost the most

• A memorised template with the topic swapped in. It scores zero for content by rule, and the empty sentences are easy to see.
• Missing one of the prompt's points. The most common content loss. Three points means three sentences, minimum.
• Wrong register. Hey guys to a customer service team, or I hereby request to a friend. Email conventions and vocabulary both take the hit.
• No greeting or no sign-off. Two lines that take five seconds and sit squarely inside the email conventions trait.
• Under fifty words. People who write a quick note and stop early lose form points, and usually content points too, because a short email rarely covers everything.

Quick answers

How many Write Email items are in PTE Core?

Two or three, in Part 1, each with its own nine-minute timer. See the exam guide for the full order of tasks.

Is 120 words a hard limit?

The target band is 50 to 120 words, and form is scored on length. Stay inside it. The only hard zero the guide names is under thirty words, but there is no reason to test the upper edge.

Can I use contractions?

In an informal email, yes; I'm and can't sound natural to a friend. In a formal email, full forms read better and are safer for the conventions trait.

Which scores does this task affect?

Writing only, but it is the single largest contributor to that score. The CLB converter shows what a Writing score means for a Canadian immigration application.