PTE Core · Part 3 · Listening + Writing
PTE Core Write from Dictation
Three or four short sentences, each heard once, each typed out in full. It is the last task in the test, it feeds both Listening and Writing, and it has the friendliest scoring rule in PTE Core: every correctly spelled word counts, in any order, with no penalty for extras.
- Questions in the test
- 3–4
- Time
- shares the listening clock
- Scoring
- Partial credit per correctly spelled word
- Traits scored
- Each correct word
54 real Write from Dictation questions inside
A glimpse of the bank. The full prompt, audio and scoring open after you sign in.
- 1There was a lot of traffic this morning.
- 2Before the refrigerator was invented, people used…
- 3Traffic is the main cause of air pollution in many cities.
What the task asks
A sentence plays through your headset, three to five seconds long, once. A text box is on screen. You type the sentence exactly as you heard it and click Next. There is no item timer, but these are the final items in Part 3 and the whole section runs on one shared listening clock, so whatever time is left when you reach them is what you have. The sentences are everyday and practical: a line from a notice, an instruction a manager might give, a sentence from a short announcement. There is no trick vocabulary. The difficulty is in holding eight to twelve words for the few seconds it takes to type them, and in spelling every one correctly.
The erasable noteboard is available, and for this task it is useful in a specific way: not for writing the sentence out, which takes longer than the audio, but for catching the first letter of each word as it goes by, so that the shape of the sentence is in front of you when you start to type.
How it is scored
Scoring is partial credit, one point for each word from the sentence that appears in your response, correctly spelled. Word order does not matter, and extra words do not cost anything; a response that contains the right words plus a wrong guess scores the same as one with the right words alone. A misspelled word earns nothing for that word. The task contributes to both Listening and Writing.
| Trait | What is measured | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Each correct word | Whether each word of the sentence appears in your response with the correct spelling, regardless of position. | 1 point per word, no negative marking |
The order and extras rule has two practical consequences. If you remember the end of a sentence before the middle, type the end first; a word out of place is still a word. And if you are torn between two spellings of a word, type both; one of them scores and the other costs nothing. Across three or four sentences of ten words each, that rule alone is worth several points to a careful test taker.
How our practice scorer grades it
When you submit a sentence here it is marked automatically and exactly by that rule: each word of the prompt checked for presence and spelling in your response, one point per hit, no deduction for order or for extra words. The sentence is revealed instantly with your response alongside, each prompt word marked found or missing, and a note on the misses: a spelling slip, a dropped ending, a small word like a or the that went unheard. Your score across sentences is shown on the 10 to 90 scale with the CLB level beside it.
It is a practice estimate. The rule is the Pearson rule; the sentences are ours; nothing here sees your real test.
A worked example
All visitors must sign the register before entering the warehouse.
Ten words, about four seconds. The words that go missing in a sentence like this are not register or warehouse; they are must, the and before, the small ones that carry the grammar and are spoken quickly. The words that get misspelled are the ones with a quiet ending, visitors without its s, entering with one r too few or too many.
Three responses, scored by the rule. All visitors must sign the register before entering the warehouse: 10 out of 10. All visitor must sign register before enter the warehouse: the writer heard everything but dropped two endings and one the; the score is 7, because visitor, enter and the missing the earn nothing. Visitors must sign the register before entering the warehouse, all: a word in the wrong place, but all ten words present and spelled correctly, so 10 out of 10. The second response is the one most people write, and the gap between it and the first is entirely spelling and endings, not listening.
Five habits that raise the score
- Listen to the whole sentence before you type a letter. Typing during the audio means hearing half of it. Four seconds of attention, then type.
- Catch first letters on the noteboard as it plays. A v m s t r b e t w is enough to rebuild All visitors must sign the register before entering the warehouse from meaning.
- Type the words you are sure of first, in any order. Order does not matter. Get the content words down, then fit the small words between them.
- Check endings and articles before Next. Plural s, -ed, -ing, a, the. The grammar of the sentence tells you which belong, even if you did not hear them.
- Save time for these items. They close the test and sit on the shared listening clock. Three or four sentences at ten points each is the best return per minute in Part 3; do not arrive with no minutes left.
The mistakes that cost the most
- Typing while listening. The reliable way to lose the second half of every sentence.
- Dropping the small words. The, a, to, of are each worth exactly as much as warehouse.
- Writing the whole sentence on the noteboard first. It takes longer than the audio and the time is better spent typing.
- Leaving a word out because you are unsure of the spelling. A guess might score; a gap cannot. Type your best attempt, or two attempts.
- Running out of time before the last sentence. The shared clock means a slow Summarize Spoken Text or a long multiple-choice item earlier is paid for here.
Quick answers
How many Write from Dictation items are in PTE Core?
Three or four, and they are the final items of Part 3 and of the test. The exam guide shows the full order.
Does word order matter?
No. Each correctly spelled word from the sentence scores wherever it appears in your response.
Are extra words penalised?
No. Extra words earn nothing but cost nothing, which is why typing two spellings of an uncertain word is a reasonable tactic.
Does capitalisation or punctuation matter?
The scoring unit is the correctly spelled word. Write the sentence properly, with a capital at the start and a full stop at the end, because it costs nothing and keeps your writing habits intact, but the points come from the words.