A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 18
AI-generated practice paper in the style of PTE Academic — original material, not a reproduction of any real exam paper, following the official task types. Listening audio is read aloud by your browser's voice. For Speaking you can record yourself and compare with a model answer, and Writing tasks include a model answer — neither is scored automatically, since that needs real speech and writing evaluation this site does not offer for this exam.
Speaking
Read Aloud
Look at the text below. In 30 seconds, you must read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.
Tea originated in China thousands of years ago and later spread to Japan, India and Britain. Each culture developed its own rituals: the Japanese tea ceremony emphasises calm and respect, while British afternoon tea became a relaxed social occasion.
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Model answer: Pause after "ago" and at the colon after "rituals". Read "Japan, India and Britain" as a list. Stress the contrast between "calm and respect" and "relaxed social occasion". Say "ceremony" and "emphasises" clearly, and fall on "occasion".
Anthropologists studying small-scale societies have found that gift-giving does more than transfer goods. It creates obligations, builds trust and strengthens relationships between families. In many cultures, refusing a gift or failing to return one can be interpreted as a serious insult.
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Model answer: Pronounce "anthropologists" slowly (five syllables). Pause after "societies" and after "goods". Treat "creates obligations, builds trust and strengthens relationships" as a three-part list with a rising tone on the first two items. Stress "refusing" and "serious insult", and fall on the final word.
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: Migration has shaped the language, food and music of many modern cities.
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Model answer: The exhibition explores how technology has changed the way we communicate.
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Model answer: Renewable energy now provides more than a third of the country's electricity.
Describe Image
Describe the image in detail.
Look at the image below. In 25 seconds, prepare, then describe in detail what the image is showing. You will have 40 seconds to speak.
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Model answer: This chart shows the marine fish catch of seven countries in millions of tonnes. China is the clear leader, catching about 13.5 million tonnes, almost double Indonesia's 7.2 million. Peru, India and Russia are grouped closely together between 5 and 6 million. The United States lands 4.2 million tonnes and Vietnam the least, at 3.4 million. One country therefore dominates, while the rest form a fairly even group.
Re-tell Lecture
Listen to the lecture and retell it.
Listen to the lecture. Then retell it in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to speak.
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Model answer: The lecture traces space tourism from early multimillion-dollar trips to the International Space Station to newer, cheaper suborbital flights from private companies. Supporters believe growing demand will lower launch costs over time, similar to early aviation. Critics argue the environmental impact and expense make it a poor use of resources serving only a wealthy few.
Answer Short Question
You will hear a question. Type your answer in one or a few words.
1. Type what you hear.
2. Type what you hear.
3. Type what you hear.
4. Type what you hear.
Summarize Group Discussion
Listen to a group discussion and summarise it.
Listen to the discussion. Then summarise it, covering each speaker's main point. You will have 70 seconds to speak.
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Model answer: Jack criticizes group grading for letting some students coast on others' work. Anna defends group projects for teaching coordination and teamwork skills. Ben proposes combining a shared grade with individual peer evaluation. They agree this works if the evaluation rubric is specific and behavior-based, balancing fairness with the collaborative skills group work is meant to build.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: During that period, I took time off to care for a family member who was seriously ill, so my priority shifted to being available for them. I'm now fully ready to focus on my career again, and I actually developed strong organizational and problem-solving skills managing that situation, which I think will transfer well into this role.
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
Feeding a growing urban population is a challenge that some entrepreneurs propose to solve by moving farms into cities. Vertical farming grows crops such as lettuce, herbs and strawberries on stacked shelves inside warehouses, using artificial light, nutrient-rich water and carefully regulated air. The advantages are considerable. Because plants grow indoors, they are protected from drought, frost and most pests, so pesticides are rarely needed, and the closed water system uses up to ninety percent less water than conventional farming. Crops can be harvested all year round close to consumers, reducing transport costs and spoilage. Yet the model faces serious obstacles. The most significant is energy: powering thousands of LED lights and climate-control systems is expensive, and unless the electricity comes from renewable sources, the carbon footprint can exceed that of field-grown produce imported from abroad. Several well-funded vertical farming companies have struggled financially or closed for this reason. Furthermore, the technique is currently suited only to fast-growing, high-value leafy vegetables and not to staple crops such as wheat, rice or potatoes, which provide most of the world's calories. Many agricultural economists therefore view vertical farming as a useful supplement that can supply fresh salad ingredients to city dwellers, rather than a replacement for the open-field agriculture on which global food security depends.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Vertical farming offers year-round, pesticide-free production close to city consumers with far less water, but because its high energy costs and limitation to leafy crops have led to financial difficulties, it is likely to supplement rather than replace conventional agriculture.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
Online courses are becoming a popular alternative to traditional classroom teaching. Do the advantages of learning online outweigh the disadvantages?
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Model answer: Since the pandemic, many people have discovered that a great deal can be learned through a screen. In my opinion, online education brings real benefits, but they do not entirely outweigh its drawbacks, and the best results often come from combining both approaches.
The advantages are considerable. Students can study at any time and from anywhere, which allows working adults, parents and people in remote areas to gain qualifications that were previously out of reach. Courses can be repeated and paused, so a learner who does not understand a concept can watch the lecture again, and costs are often lower because there is no need for travel or accommodation.
Nevertheless, the disadvantages should not be overlooked. Studying alone requires great self-discipline, and completion rates for open online courses are notoriously low. Learners miss the immediate feedback of a teacher and the spontaneous discussion that occurs in a classroom, which can be crucial for developing critical thinking and communication skills. Practical subjects such as chemistry, nursing or engineering also require access to equipment and supervised experience. In addition, students without a reliable internet connection or a quiet place to work are at a disadvantage.
For these reasons, I believe that online learning is best regarded as a valuable supplement or a second chance rather than a complete replacement. Blended courses, which combine flexible online content with regular face-to-face sessions, seem to offer the greatest benefits.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
In clinical trials, some patients who receive an inactive treatment, such as a sugar pill, nevertheless report genuine improvement in their symptoms, a phenomenon known as the placebo effect. Researchers believe this response is partly by the brain's own chemistry, since the expectation of relief can trigger the release of natural painkillers. The effect tends to be strongest for symptoms that are subjective, such as pain or fatigue, and weaker for conditions that can objectively, such as a bacterial infection. Because of this, researchers testing new drugs must compare their results against a placebo group assuming that any improvement proves the drug works. Interestingly, some studies suggest that even when patients are told they are receiving a placebo, a portion of the effect .
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
Minimalism emerged in the visual arts during the 1960s, largely in the United States, as a deliberate reaction against the emotionally expressive, gesture-heavy painting that had dominated the previous decade. Minimalist artists favoured simple geometric forms, industrial materials such as steel and fluorescent tubing, and a deliberate absence of visible personal expression, arguing that a work of art should be experienced directly as an object in space rather than interpreted as a window into the artist's inner emotions. Many minimalist sculptures were produced using standardised, repeated units, sometimes fabricated by factory workers rather than the artist personally, a choice intended to remove any trace of individual craftsmanship or emotional gesture from the finished piece. Critics at the time were sharply divided: some praised the movement for its clarity, precision and honesty about materials, while others dismissed it as cold, impersonal and lacking the meaning associated with earlier art. Despite this controversy, minimalist principles later influenced fields far beyond sculpture and painting, including architecture, product design and typography, where the same preference for simplicity, restraint and clean geometric form continues to shape contemporary design decades later.
1. Which TWO statements does the passage support?
Re-order Paragraphs
Click the sentences to put them in the correct order.
2. Put the paragraph in the correct order.
Reading: Fill in the Blanks
Choose the best word for each blank.
Demographic transition theory describes a pattern that many countries have followed as they industrialise, in which both birth rates and death rates shift from initially high levels to eventually low ones, though not always at exactly the same pace. In the earliest stage, both birth and death rates remain high, keeping overall population growth relatively despite large families, since many children do not survive to adulthood. As improvements in sanitation, nutrition and medicine cause death rates to more quickly than birth rates initially adjust, a country typically experiences a period of rapid population growth. Eventually, as living standards rise further and access to education and family planning expands, birth rates tend to as well, gradually stabilising population growth at a much lower level than during the transitional period. Demographers note that some countries have progressed through these stages far more quickly than the historical pace observed in Europe, a pattern they partly to the more rapid spread of modern medicine and technology to later-industrialising nations.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
Many organisations have introduced formal mentorship programmes that deliberately pair newer, typically less experienced employees with more senior colleagues, aiming to accelerate the newer employee's professional development through regular guidance, honest constructive feedback and access to organisational knowledge that might otherwise take considerably longer to acquire through unassisted, unstructured personal experience alone. Research examining the effectiveness of such programmes has generally found that employees who participate in a well-structured mentorship relationship report measurably higher job satisfaction and are somewhat more likely to remain with their current employer over the following several years compared with otherwise similar employees who did not have access to any comparable formal mentorship arrangement. However, researchers caution that a mentorship programme's genuine effectiveness depends heavily on the specific quality and consistency of the pairing between mentor and mentee, since a poorly matched pair, whether due to a significant personality clash or simply insufficient regular time and effort genuinely invested by the senior mentor, can produce distinctly disappointing results that fall well short of a programme's stated intended goals. For this reason, organisations increasingly invest specifically in training mentors properly and in carefully monitoring the ongoing quality of mentoring relationships, rather than simply establishing a formal, well-intentioned pairing scheme and subsequently assuming, without any further oversight, that meaningful benefits will automatically and reliably follow.
3. According to the passage, what does a mentorship programme's effectiveness heavily depend on?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
Before the nineteenth century, most people assumed that offspring were a blend of their parents, like mixing two colours of paint. The monk Gregor Mendel questioned that idea. Working in a monastery garden in what is now the Czech Republic, he bred thousands of pea plants and carefully counted the results. When he crossed tall plants with short ones, the offspring were all tall, not medium. But when those offspring were crossed with each other, about a quarter of the next generation were short again. Mendel concluded that traits are controlled by discrete units, which we now call genes, and that some versions are dominant while others are recessive. His paper was published in eighteen sixty-six and was largely ignored for thirty-four years. Only in nineteen hundred did other scientists rediscover it, and it became the foundation of modern genetics.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
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Model answer: Mendel's careful experiments with pea plants showed that traits are inherited as separate units, now called genes, some dominant and some recessive, rather than blending as previously assumed. His 1866 work was ignored for decades but was rediscovered in 1900 and became the foundation on which modern genetics was built, the science of how characteristics pass between generations.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
In the eighteen nineties, a bicycle craze swept Europe and North America, and it had surprising social effects. The newly invented safety bicycle, with two equal-sized wheels and a chain drive, was affordable and easy to ride. For many women it offered independence for the first time, since they could travel alone without a chaperone or a horse. The American campaigner Susan B. Anthony said the bicycle had done more to emancipate women than anything else. It also changed fashion. Long, heavy skirts were dangerous around the pedals, so some women adopted shorter skirts or loose trousers called bloomers, provoking criticism from newspapers and preachers. Doctors even warned of a condition called bicycle face. But the trend could not be stopped, and by the end of the decade, cycling clubs for women were common.
1. Which TWO statements are true according to the lecture?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
Beneath much of the world's farmland lie vast underground reservoirs called aquifers, which took thousands of years to fill as rainwater seeped downward through soil and . Many regions now pump water from these aquifers for irrigation far faster than nature can refill them, essentially mining a resource that formed over a geological . As water tables drop, wells must be drilled deeper, electricity costs for pumping rise, and in some areas the ground itself slowly sinks as empty rock layers , permanently reducing future storage . Governments now regulate pumping limits, though enforcement remains genuinely .
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
While bees and butterflies get most of the attention as pollinators, several hundred plant species, including some varieties of banana, mango and agave, rely primarily on bats to transfer pollen between flowers, and this relationship has shaped some flowers to specifically suit bat visitors. Bat-pollinated flowers typically open at night, when bats are active, and produce large amounts of dilute, easily accessible nectar along with a strong, often slightly musty or fermented scent that carries well through the air and helps a bat locate the flower using its keen sense of smell in the dark. Some of these flowers are also shaped or positioned specifically to make them easy for an approaching bat to reach or hover near without becoming tangled in surrounding foliage. Losing bat populations to disease or habitat destruction can therefore directly threaten the reproduction of the specific plants that depend on them.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
Vertical farms grow crops in stacked layers indoors, usually under artificial lighting with controlled temperature, humidity and nutrients, allowing food production in cities close to consumers regardless of outdoor climate or season. Supporters note vertical farms use dramatically less land and water than conventional farming for the same output, and eliminate the need for pesticides, since the growing environment is fully enclosed. However, the energy needed to power lighting around the clock is substantial, which currently makes vertical farming economical mainly for high-value, fast-growing crops like leafy greens rather than staple grains such as wheat.
3. Why is vertical farming currently limited mainly to crops like leafy greens, according to the speaker?
Select Missing Word
The recording ends with a beep. Choose the option that best completes it.
4. Choose the word or phrase that best completes the recording.
Highlight Incorrect Words
Listen to the recording and select the words in the text that differ from what you hear.
5. The text below differs from the recording in some words. Select the words that are DIFFERENT from what you hear. Before electric doorbells existed, visitors typically announced themselves by knocking on a door directly or pulling a mechanical bell-pull connected to a chime somewhere inside the house. An American inventor reportedly patented an electric doorbell design in the 1840s that used a small electromagnet to strike a bell whenever a button outside the door closed an electrical circuit, a simple principle still largely unchanged in many doorbells today.
Write from Dictation
Listen to the sentence and type it exactly as you hear it.
6. Type what you hear.
7. Type what you hear.
Keep your streak going
Up next: PTE Academic Practice Test 19