Ten common PTE mistakes and how to avoid them

Plenty of people practise for weeks and then watch their scores stop rising. Effort is rarely the cause: a handful of habits keep costing marks, and each one feels like hard work, so nobody questions it. Here are ten of them, each with a fix you can start using today.

Ten mistakes, and a fix for each

1. Memorising templates. A script learned word for word sounds learned, and it cannot react to the question in front of you. The software is not impressed by how long it took you to memorise it, and responses that look memorised can be penalised. Fix: learn flexible frames, such as two ways to open and a few linking phrases, and build the rest from the prompt. A quick test: if you could say the sentence without seeing the question, it is a script.
2. Rushing Read Aloud. Speed feels like confidence, but it flattens the rhythm that makes you sound fluent. Fix: use the preparation time to read the whole passage and plan your pauses, as in how to pace your voice and where to pause.
3. Long pauses. A silence in the middle of an answer sounds like struggling and drags down your fluency. Fix: keep talking, even slowly, and if you lose a word, skip it. Record one minute on any topic each day and listen for gaps longer than a breath.
4. Ignoring basic grammar. "The number of students are increasing" should be "is", and small slips like that repeat through every typed and spoken answer. Fix: pick your three most frequent errors and give them five minutes a day, and nothing else.
5. Writing over-long summaries. Summarize Written Text asks for a single sentence, and a rambling, overloaded one puts marks for form and grammar at risk. Fix: find the main point, write one sentence, then cut it. The one-sentence method shows how.
6. Spending too long on one question. A tricky Re-order Paragraphs can swallow the time that belonged to the next five questions. Fix: set a personal limit per question, make your best guess and move on. Plan as if you cannot go back.
7. Not practising typing. If you hunt for keys, ideas stall and typos creep in. Fix: ten minutes a day of copy-typing without looking down, as set out in typing habits for the PTE keyboard.
8. Practising only favourite tasks. Repeating what you already do well is pleasant, and it changes little. Fix: start each session with your weakest task while you are fresh, and give the newer speaking tasks, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation, a regular slot.
9. Never reviewing mistakes. Starting another test is easier than studying the last one. Fix: keep an error log, and spend five minutes after every session writing what went wrong and why.
10. Relying on one practice score. One number describes one day, one set of questions and one estimate. Fix: compare several attempts over a few weeks, and read the skill scores as well as the overall figure. See what a practice score can and cannot tell you.

Finding the ones that are yours

You will recognise some of these at once and be blind to others, so use evidence. Open your last three practice attempts and look for repeats, not one-off slips. A slip that appears three times is a habit, and a habit belongs in an error log. Here is what a useful entry looks like (an illustrative example):

Entries like this tell you where to spend next week. Keeping an error log shows a full layout.

A twenty-minute check for today

1. Read the ten again and mark the three that made you wince.
2. Open your last three practice attempts and look for one real example of each habit. If you cannot find one, it may not be yours yet.
3. Write one fix for each habit on a card and put the card where you practise.
4. After every session this week, tick the card or write down what happened.

Then run your next session in the practice tests on this site with the card in view, and note afterwards whether the same habit appeared. If it did, it has earned a place in your log.