A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 24
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.
Volcanic eruptions can influence the global climate. When a large volcano erupts, it releases sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, where it forms tiny droplets that reflect sunlight back into space. The result is often a temporary cooling of the planet lasting one or two years.
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Model answer: Keep a calm academic tone. Stress "global climate", "sulphur dioxide" and "reflect sunlight". Pause after "erupts" and after "atmosphere". Slow down on "temporary cooling" and finish with a clear downward intonation on "years".
Vaccines work by training the immune system to recognise a pathogen without causing the disease itself. When the real virus later appears, the body responds quickly, producing antibodies before serious illness can develop. Widespread vaccination also protects people who cannot be vaccinated, an effect known as herd immunity.
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Model answer: Articulate "pathogen", "antibodies" and "immunity" carefully. Pause after "itself" and after "quickly". Stress "without causing" to show the key idea. Slow down on "herd immunity" and finish with a clear falling tone.
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: It took the engineers nearly ten years to complete the tunnel.
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Model answer: Ice cores from Antarctica reveal how the climate has changed over centuries.
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Model answer: Fresh fruit and vegetables should be washed before eating.
Describe Image
Describe the image in detail.
Wind — 54%
Biomass — 19%
Solar — 10%
Natural gas — 8%
Coal — 5%
Other — 4%
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: The pie chart shows the sources of electricity in Denmark. Wind power dominates, providing 54 percent, more than half of the total. Biomass is second with 19 percent, and solar contributes 10 percent. Fossil fuels play only a small role: natural gas supplies 8 percent and coal just 5. Other sources make up the final 4 percent. Renewable sources are clearly the majority.
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 explains that AI trained on medical images can match or exceed specialists at narrow tasks like cancer detection, learning from examples rather than explicit rules, which makes results powerful but hard to explain. Most see AI as supporting, not replacing, doctors, and regulators remain cautious since performance doesn't always generalize across different hospital populations.
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: Henry supports a full ban on junk food advertising to children. Isla warns this might push marketing toward harder-to-regulate channels like influencers. Jack argues imperfect enforcement still justifies restricting obvious cases like mascots. The group agrees on combining direct restrictions with school food-literacy education, plus regular policy review as marketing tactics evolve.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: I'm so sorry, I just knocked my wine over onto your new carpet, and it's already staining. Do you have any cloths or carpet cleaner I could use right now to try to treat it quickly before it sets in? I'll obviously cover the cost of professional cleaning or a replacement if it doesn't come out.
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
Microplastics, fragments smaller than five millimetres, have been detected in environments as remote as Antarctic snow and the deepest ocean trenches. Some originate as deliberately tiny particles, such as the microbeads once added to facial scrubs, but most are produced when larger objects break down. Synthetic clothing sheds thousands of fibres in every wash, car tyres release particles as they wear, and discarded bottles and bags fragment under sunlight and waves. Because wastewater treatment plants capture only part of this material, a significant quantity ends up in rivers and seas, where it is ingested by plankton, shellfish and fish. The consequences for human health remain uncertain. Particles have been found in drinking water, salt, and even human blood and placental tissue, yet researchers have not established whether the concentrations involved cause disease. Laboratory studies indicate that plastics can carry harmful chemicals and provoke inflammation, but translating these findings to real-world exposure is difficult, partly because there is no standard method for measuring particles. Nonetheless, several governments have banned microbeads and are considering limits on synthetic textiles, and manufacturers are testing filters for washing machines. Many scientists argue that the most effective approach is to reduce plastic production at its source, since removing particles from the environment once they have dispersed is, for practical purposes, impossible.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Microplastics, mostly created when larger plastic objects degrade, now contaminate even remote environments and human bodies, and although their health effects are not yet proven, many scientists believe that cutting plastic production is the only realistic solution since dispersed particles cannot be retrieved.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
News organisations are sometimes accused of presenting stories in a way that favours a particular political viewpoint. Should governments regulate the media to ensure balanced reporting?
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Model answer: Accusations of bias against news organisations are common across the political spectrum, and while I understand the appeal of government regulation to ensure balance, I believe such intervention carries greater dangers than the problem it aims to solve.
Those who favour regulation argue that an uninformed or misinformed public cannot make sound democratic decisions, and that some outlets, driven by commercial or ideological interests, selectively report facts or frame stories in misleading ways. Requiring broadcasters and publishers to present multiple perspectives, they suggest, could reduce polarisation and help audiences form judgements based on more complete information.
However, granting government the power to judge what counts as balanced reporting creates an obvious risk: whichever party controls that power could use it to suppress legitimate criticism of its own record, labelling unfavourable coverage as biased while approving flattering coverage as fair. Even well-intentioned rules would require officials to make subjective judgements about tone and framing that reasonable people could interpret very differently, and history offers many examples of press regulation being used to entrench those already in power rather than to protect the public.
I therefore believe that press freedom, including the freedom to be one-sided, should generally be protected from government interference, while independent, non-governmental press councils, transparent ownership rules, and strong media literacy education in schools offer safer ways to encourage responsible journalism. Readers themselves, informed about how to evaluate sources critically, remain the most reliable safeguard against being misled by biased reporting.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
Nearly every cell in the human body follows an internal clock, known as the circadian rhythm, that processes such as body temperature, hormone release and alertness across a roughly twenty-four-hour cycle. This clock is synchronised primarily by exposure to light, which signals to the brain it is day or night. Travellers who cross several time zones quickly often experience jet lag, because their internal clock remains with the new local time for several days. Shift workers face a related problem, since working through the night forces the body to its natural inclination to sleep. Researchers have linked chronic disruption of circadian rhythms to a range of health problems, including obesity and cardiovascular disease, and now recommend that shift patterns be designed with these risks mind.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
Before the mid-nineteenth century, buildings rarely exceeded five or six storeys, since climbing stairs beyond that height was impractical for most occupants, effectively placing a natural limit on how tall a commercially viable building could be. The introduction of a safety device that could stop an elevator car from falling even if its supporting cable snapped removed a major psychological barrier to using elevators in tall buildings, and this innovation, demonstrated publicly in dramatic fashion in the 1850s, is often credited with making truly tall buildings commercially practical for the first time. Once elevators could be trusted, architects and engineers were free to design far taller structures, though skyscrapers also depended on a second key innovation: a strong internal steel frame capable of bearing a building's weight, which allowed exterior walls to become lighter and less structurally essential than they had been in earlier masonry construction, where thick load-bearing walls limited both height and the size of windows. Together, these two developments transformed city skylines within just a few decades, and the upper floors of tall buildings, once considered the least desirable because of the effort required to reach them, gradually became some of the most sought-after and expensive space in a building.
1. Which THREE statements are supported by the passage?
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.
Before the invention of printing, books were copied entirely by hand, and the most valuable among them were often decorated with elaborate illustrations and gold leaf, a practice known as illumination that could a simple religious text into a genuine work of art. Producing such a manuscript required enormous time and skill, since scribes and artists worked for months or even years to a single decorated volume, using pigments made from costly materials such as crushed lapis lazuli or genuine gold. Monasteries were among the most important centres of manuscript production in medieval Europe, and monks dedicated to this painstaking work were expected to text with near-perfect accuracy despite working without any of the corrective tools a modern editor might use. Because each manuscript was unique and extraordinarily expensive to produce, owning an illuminated book was historically wealthy patrons, royalty and major religious institutions. Many surviving examples are now considered priceless, and museums take extensive precautions to them from light damage during public display.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
Ransomware is a specific type of malicious software that, once it has successfully infected a computer system, encrypts the victim's own files, rendering them completely inaccessible until a ransom, typically demanded in a cryptocurrency that is considerably more difficult to trace back to the recipient than conventional currency, is paid to the attacker in exchange for the necessary decryption key. Organisations of many different kinds, ranging from small local businesses to major hospitals and even large city governments, have increasingly become deliberate targets of ransomware attacks, since a successful, disruptive attack can quickly and effectively halt genuinely critical operations, creating considerable and often urgent pressure to pay a demanded ransom quickly, regardless of cost, simply to restore normal function as soon as possible. Cybersecurity experts generally advise strongly against paying any ransom, however, partly because payment provides no absolute guarantee that files will actually be fully and correctly restored, and partly because paying ransoms at all directly funds and thereby actively encourages further, future criminal ransomware activity elsewhere. Instead, security experts consistently recommend maintaining regularly updated backup copies of important, critical data stored completely separately from a main computer network, specifically so that an organisation can genuinely restore its own systems from those backups without ever needing to pay a ransom demand at all, even in the event of a successful ransomware attack.
3. According to the passage, why do cybersecurity experts advise against paying a ransom?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
The Bauhaus was a German art and design school founded by the architect Walter Gropius in nineteen nineteen. Its central idea was to unite art, craft and technology, so that beautiful design could be produced for everyday life. Students studied everything from weaving to architecture, and they learned by making things in workshops rather than only in lectures. The designers favoured simple geometric shapes, clean lines and the honest use of materials, with the famous principle that form should follow function. They also embraced industrial production so that well-designed furniture and household objects could be affordable. The school was closed under pressure from the Nazi government in nineteen thirty-three, and many of its teachers emigrated to the United States, where they spread its ideas. That's why much modern furniture, typography and architecture, including the glass-and-steel office building, carries the Bauhaus influence.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
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Model answer: The Bauhaus, founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, combined art, craft and technology, teaching through workshops and promoting simple forms, honest materials and the idea that form follows function, with affordable industrial production. After the Nazis closed it in 1933, its teachers emigrated and spread its influence on modern architecture, furniture and typography.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
Competitive video gaming, or esports, has grown from small local tournaments into a global industry with sponsorships, dedicated stadiums and prize pools that can exceed those of some traditional sports. Some universities now offer esports scholarships, and a handful of countries recognise top players as professional athletes for visa purposes. Researchers who study elite players have found reaction times and decision-making speed comparable to top athletes in fast sports such as table tennis, though the physical demands are obviously different. Concerns remain about the health of players who train for many hours a day, including repetitive strain injuries and disrupted sleep, and some teams now employ physiotherapists and sports psychologists, borrowing directly from traditional sports science. Whether esports will eventually appear in a major multi-sport event such as the Olympics remains a matter of ongoing discussion among organisers.
1. Which of the following are mentioned in the lecture?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
Farmers in many volcanic regions consider their land unusually fertile, and the chemistry behind this is well understood. Volcanic ash, once weathered by rain and time, breaks down into minerals rich in and other nutrients plants need. The porous structure of weathered volcanic soil also holds and air effectively, giving roots better conditions than denser soils. This is why regions near volcanoes, such as parts of Italy and , often support dense and intensive farming despite the real danger of future , a trade-off communities have accepted for generations.
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
Before modern toothbrushes, people cleaned their teeth using twigs with frayed ends, cloth, or their fingers rubbed with abrasive powder, and versions of bristle toothbrushes using animal hair set into bone or wood handles existed in China for centuries before spreading gradually to Europe. Mass production of toothbrushes only began in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, though natural bristles remained a hygiene concern since they retained moisture and could harbour bacteria between uses. The invention of nylon in the nineteen thirties allowed manufacturers to replace animal-hair bristles with synthetic ones that dried faster and were more hygienic and consistent in stiffness, and nylon-bristled toothbrushes quickly became the global standard, a design that, aside from added features like flexible heads, has changed relatively little since.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
Circular road junctions existed from the early twentieth century, but early versions often gave priority to entering traffic rather than traffic already circulating, which could lock the roundabout up entirely once it filled, since incoming vehicles kept adding to congestion the circulating traffic couldn't clear. A British engineer helped solve this in the nineteen sixties by making circulating traffic always have priority, preventing lock-ups and keeping the junction flowing even when busy. This rule, now standard in most countries, let roundabouts handle far higher traffic volumes while causing fewer serious collisions than light-controlled junctions.
3. What problem did giving circulating traffic priority solve, according to the lecture?
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. Emperor penguins survive brutally cold Antarctic winters partly by huddling together in large, tightly packed groups that can lower heat loss considerably compared with standing alone in open wind. Individuals continuously shuffle and rotate positions within the huddle, so that no single penguin is stuck on the exposed outer edge for too long, and this coordinated rotation is genuinely essential to the whole group's survival.
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 25