A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 29
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.
Glaciers are enormous rivers of ice that flow slowly downhill under their own weight. As they move, they grind the rock beneath them, carving deep valleys and leaving behind scattered boulders. Many of the lakes and fjords we see today were shaped by glaciers during the last ice age.
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Model answer: Read at a slightly slower, descriptive pace. Stress "enormous", "slowly" and "deep". Pause after "downhill" and after "them". Watch the pronunciation of "boulders" and "fjords". For the final sentence, lift on "lakes and fjords" and fall on "last ice age".
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".
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: Do you know when the next tutorial takes place?
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Model answer: Many people believe that money alone cannot guarantee happiness.
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Model answer: The university has introduced a new policy on plagiarism and academic honesty.
Describe Image
Describe the image in detail.
ClothingGroceries
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 graph shows the percentage of clothing and grocery sales made online between 2014 and 2022. Clothing is consistently higher, rising from 12 percent to 21 in 2018 and jumping to 34 in 2020. Groceries start at just 3 percent and reach 14 in 2020. Both categories peaked in 2020 and then fell slightly, to 30 and 12 percent in 2022. Clothing is roughly two and a half times more likely to be bought online.
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 describes the Arctic tern's extraordinary migration, over seventy thousand kilometers yearly between Arctic and Antarctic waters, giving it near-constant daylight for much of its life. Satellite tracking shows terns follow winds and food rather than flying straight routes. Over a thirty-year lifespan, total distance flown can equal several trips to the moon.
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: Isla argues cities should invest heavily in cycling infrastructure over roads for its health and environmental benefits. Jack notes some cities' density or terrain makes cycling impractical. Anna suggests targeting investment by local conditions. They agree well-connected cycling networks in suitable areas, rather than uniform citywide policy, produce the most meaningful shift away from car use.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: I understand you normally need a receipt, but this was a gift, so I never had one to begin with. I'm not asking for a cash refund, just an exchange for a different size in the same item, ideally for store credit if that's easier for you to process without proof of purchase.
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
For much of the twentieth century, educators and even some doctors believed that raising a child in two languages would confuse the developing mind and delay learning. Modern research has largely overturned that view. Bilingual children may initially know fewer words in each language than monolingual peers, but their total vocabulary is comparable, and they generally reach the major milestones of language development at the same age. More interestingly, studies suggest that managing two languages trains a set of mental skills known as executive function. Because both languages remain partly active in the brain at all times, a bilingual speaker must constantly suppress the unwanted one, and this practice appears to strengthen attention, task switching and the ability to ignore distractions. Some researchers have even reported that bilingualism delays the onset of dementia symptoms by several years, although this finding is contested, with other teams failing to replicate the size of the effect. Critics also note that many early studies compared groups that differed in socioeconomic background, which could account for some apparent advantages. The consensus, therefore, is cautious. There is little doubt that bilingualism carries no cognitive cost and brings obvious social and cultural benefits, but claims of a general intellectual boost should be treated with care until larger and better-controlled studies have been completed.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Contrary to older beliefs, bilingualism does not confuse children and may strengthen attention and mental flexibility, but because some claimed cognitive advantages have not been consistently replicated, researchers conclude that only its social and cultural benefits are certain.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
Roughly half of the world's languages are expected to disappear within this century as younger generations shift to more widely spoken ones. Should governments invest in preserving endangered languages?
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Model answer: With a significant proportion of the world's languages at risk of disappearing within a few generations, I believe governments have good reason to invest in preserving them, even though such efforts cannot always succeed.
Each language encodes a distinct way of organising knowledge, from local plant names used by indigenous communities to concepts that resist easy translation, and once a language's last fluent speakers die, that particular record of human experience is lost permanently. Language is also closely tied to cultural identity, and communities that lose their ancestral language often report a weakened sense of belonging and connection to their history, alongside practical harms such as reduced access to traditional knowledge about medicine or the local environment.
Critics argue that language shift is often driven by speakers' own rational choices, as they or their children seek better education and employment opportunities available in a dominant language, and that public money might achieve more if spent on immediate needs such as healthcare or infrastructure rather than documentation projects with uncertain long-term impact.
I believe the strongest response is not to try to force people to keep using a language against their own interests, but to support communities that wish to maintain theirs, through funding for schools that teach in the local language alongside a dominant one, digital archiving projects, and recording of elderly speakers. Modest investment of this kind can preserve linguistic diversity for future study and cultural continuity without asking anyone to sacrifice practical opportunity.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
Each autumn, millions of monarch butterflies in North America thousands of kilometres from their summer breeding grounds to a small number of forested sites in central Mexico, where they spend the winter clustered together on trees. Remarkably, the butterflies that complete this journey have never the trip before, since the return journey north the following spring is completed by several subsequent generations rather than the original travellers. Scientists believe the insects rely on a combination of the sun's position and an internal magnetic sense to maintain a consistent direction across such an enormous distance, never having seen the destination themselves. Deforestation in Mexico and the loss of a plant called milkweed, which monarch caterpillars depend on almost for food, have contributed to a sharp decline in butterfly numbers in recent decades. Conservationists in several countries are now working together to protect habitat the entire migratory route.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
Prolonged or repeated exposure to loud sound can permanently damage the delicate hair cells within the inner ear that are responsible for converting sound vibrations into the electrical signals the brain interprets as hearing, and unlike some other cells in the body, these hair cells generally do not regenerate once destroyed in humans. Hearing loss caused this way often develops so gradually that a person may not notice a meaningful difference until a substantial amount of permanent damage has already accumulated, since the brain can partly compensate for early, mild hearing loss by unconsciously adjusting how it processes the remaining signal. Occupational settings such as construction sites, factories and music venues have historically posed a significant risk, prompting many countries to introduce workplace regulations requiring hearing protection above certain noise levels, but public health researchers increasingly warn that personal listening devices, particularly when used at high volume through headphones for extended periods, now represent a comparable and rapidly growing risk, especially among younger people. Because the damage is irreversible, hearing health specialists emphasise prevention through lower listening volumes and appropriate ear protection as the only truly effective strategy, since currently available hearing aids can amplify remaining sound but cannot restore hair cells that have already been permanently destroyed.
1. Which TWO 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.
Even when a person consumes what appears to be a perfectly adequate number of daily calories, their diet can still lack sufficient quantities of specific vitamins or minerals, a condition commonly referred to as micronutrient deficiency, or sometimes informally as hidden hunger. A deficiency in iron, for example, can the blood's ability to carry oxygen efficiently around the body, leading to persistent fatigue and generally reduced concentration, even in someone who otherwise appears reasonably well-nourished and consumes sufficient overall calories. Public health programmes in many countries have addressed certain especially widespread micronutrient deficiencies by common staple foods, such as adding iodine directly to table salt or vitamin D to everyday dairy products, reaching large numbers of people without requiring them to substantially change their existing everyday diet. Micronutrient deficiencies remain particularly common in regions where diets rely heavily on a narrow range of staple crops that, while adequately filling in terms of daily calories, generally lack a genuinely diverse range of essential vitamins and minerals. Addressing these deficiencies effectively often requires a combination approach, large-scale food fortification programmes with more targeted nutritional supplementation specifically for the most clearly and severely affected vulnerable groups.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
Open source software refers to computer programs whose underlying source code is made freely and publicly available, allowing anyone to view, modify and typically redistribute the software, generally subject to the specific terms of whichever particular open source licence the original software's creator has chosen to apply. Some open source licences, often described as permissive, impose very few meaningful restrictions on how the code may subsequently be reused, allowing companies to freely incorporate open source code into their own commercial, closed-source products with minimal ongoing obligation. Other licences, often described as copyleft, instead require that any subsequently modified or redistributed version of the software must itself also remain open source under the same or a compatible licence, an approach specifically intended to ensure that the underlying code, and any future improvements made to it, remains permanently and freely available to the wider community rather than eventually being absorbed into a closed, proprietary commercial product. Businesses building products that incorporate open source components must therefore carefully understand and track the specific licensing terms that apply, since violating a copyleft licence's specific terms could potentially require a company to unexpectedly release its own proprietary code as open source as well, a legal and commercial risk many companies work hard to carefully avoid.
3. According to the passage, what does a copyleft licence typically require?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
Look at a medieval painting and you'll notice that the figures often seem to float, with no convincing sense of depth. That changed in fifteenth-century Italy with the rediscovery of linear perspective. The architect Brunelleschi is usually credited with demonstrating the method around fourteen twenty. The basic principle is that parallel lines, like the edges of a road, appear to converge toward a single vanishing point on the horizon. Painters who used this principle could create the illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface. Alberti then wrote it down as a set of rules, and artists such as Leonardo and Raphael built on it. The change wasn't only technical. Perspective reflected a new way of seeing the world, in which the individual observer stood at the centre, and that fits well with Renaissance humanism.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
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Model answer: Linear perspective, demonstrated by Brunelleschi and codified by Alberti, allowed Renaissance painters to create the illusion of depth by making parallel lines converge on a vanishing point. It was more than a technique, because placing the observer at the centre of the picture reflected the humanist emphasis on the individual.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
Waiting in line seems like a simple, universal behaviour, but sociologists have found that queuing norms vary considerably between cultures and reveal a great deal about a society's assumptions about fairness. In many countries, a strict first-come-first-served order is treated almost as a moral rule, and queue-jumping can provoke strong anger even over trivial matters like buying a coffee. In other contexts, queues are looser or replaced entirely by numbered tickets or crowding toward a counter, which can baffle visitors used to stricter systems. Researchers have also studied how people judge waiting time itself: a wait that feels unfair or uncertain, such as one with no visible progress or explanation, is consistently rated as far more frustrating than an equally long wait where people can see the line moving or are given an estimated time. This is why many service providers now display countdowns or numbered positions, even without actually speeding up the process.
1. Which THREE points does the speaker make about queuing?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
On certain nights each year, timed with the phase of the moon, many coral colonies across a reef release their eggs and sperm into the water almost simultaneously, an event called mass coral . This synchronisation is thought to improve fertilisation, since it floods the water with reproductive material at once, overwhelming predators that might otherwise eat most of the . The resulting larvae drift with ocean currents, sometimes for , before settling and beginning to grow. Because the spawning night is so predictable, researchers gather offshore to collect eggs for coral breeding aimed at restoring damaged .
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
Constant exposure to traffic noise, construction and other urban sounds does more than annoy city residents; researchers have linked chronic noise exposure to measurable health effects, including disrupted sleep, elevated stress hormones, and, over the long term, an increased risk of high blood pressure and heart disease, even among people who report having grown used to the noise and no longer consciously notice it. Cities have responded with a range of measures, including noise barriers along busy roads, stricter limits on construction hours in residential areas, and quieter asphalt surfaces that reduce tyre noise, though enforcement of existing noise regulations is often inconsistent. Urban planners increasingly argue that noise deserves the same serious attention as air pollution when designing healthy cities, rather than being treated as a minor, purely subjective annoyance.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
Bird beak shapes vary enormously between species, and much of this variation reflects each species' particular diet and feeding method rather than any close evolutionary relationship between the species themselves. Birds that crack open hard seeds, such as finches, tend to have thick, cone-shaped beaks capable of strong crushing force, while birds that probe deep into flowers for nectar, such as hummingbirds, have long, slender beaks suited to reaching where thicker beaks couldn't fit. Charles Darwin studied slight beak variations among finch populations on the Galápagos Islands, observing how small differences in shape closely matched the food available on each island.
3. What did Darwin observe about finch beaks on the Galápagos Islands, 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. Before the cash register existed, shop owners had relatively little reliable way to stop employees from secretly pocketing a customer's payment. An American saloon owner eventually patented a mechanical device in the eighteen seventies that sounded a bell and displayed the amount on a dial each time a sale was made, and it also automatically printed a paper record that let the owner later check the day's total takings, precisely and honestly.
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 30