Write from Dictation: how to catch more words

You hear one sentence, once, and then it is gone. The marks tend to disappear in two places: the end of the sentence, which has faded by the time your fingers reach it, and the small endings (-s, -ed) that are easy to mishear and easy to leave off.

Type as you listen, in chunks

Do not wait for the sentence to finish before you start typing. Rest your hands on the keys before the audio starts, because the first word is easy to lose while you are still settling in. Begin when the first words arrive and keep your fingers moving. It helps to hear the sentence in chunks of three or four words, like this:

While you type "the library", the next chunk, "will extend", is already arriving. Each chunk is small enough to hold in your head for the few seconds it takes to type.

If a word slips past you, do not stop to puzzle over it. Leave a space or type your best guess and move on, because every second spent on word four costs you words five and six. A guess is better than a gap, since a gap can never score.

The end of the sentence is the part you lose when your memory is still full of the middle. If you notice you are two or three words behind the voice, jump forward to what you are hearing now and leave a gap behind you. A gap can be filled later. Words you never heard cannot.

Spelling is where the marks are

Each correctly spelt word is what earns marks, so a word you heard perfectly and typed as recieve gives you nothing. (It is the classic example of the rule "i before e, except after c".) If the recording ends and you have a few seconds left, scan the sentence word by word. How capital letters and punctuation are treated is something to check in Pearson's current test guide. Whatever it says, do not let them slow you down: the words come first.

Small endings decide many words

Speakers swallow endings. "Asked" can sound like "ask", "reports" like "report", and "have measured" like "have measure". Let grammar back up your ears. A past time marker, or "have" before the word, usually points to -ed. Words such as "several", "many" and "these" point to a plural. A singular subject with a present-tense verb needs the -s, as in "the manager approves". Your ears supply the sound, and the grammar tells you whether the ending belongs.

Three practice sentences, and where they go wrong

Ask a friend to read these aloud once, or record yourself saying them and play the recording back tomorrow, when the words are no longer fresh. Type each one, then compare.

1. The library will extend its opening hours during the exam period. Watch for its typed as "it's", hours typed as "ours", and extend heard as "extent".
2. Students who submitted their reports late were asked to explain why. Watch for "submited" with one t, "were asked" typed as "was ask", and "reports" without its s.
3. Several researchers have measured how quickly the glacier is retreating. Watch for "researcher" without its s, "have measure", the spelling "glaceir", and "retreating" heard as "treating".

Ten sentences a day, and a log of what you miss

Little and often suits this task better than one long session. Take ten sentences from a news bulletin or a coursebook with audio, each only a few seconds long. Play each one once, type it, then check against the transcript.

Then keep an error log. For every word you missed or misspelt, write the correct word, what you typed and the reason:

After a week, count the reasons. If "ending" or "spelling" comes up most, that is where your next ten minutes should go, rather than more listening. There is more on this in keeping an error log that actually changes your scores. Typing speed matters too: if you have to look at the keys, you will fall behind the voice, so read typing habits for the PTE keyboard.

When you want to try it against a countdown, the practice tests on this site include Write from Dictation questions, and the scores they give are estimates, not official results.