A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 39
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.
Deserts are not always hot. Antarctica, with almost no rainfall, is technically the largest desert on Earth. Deserts are defined by low precipitation rather than temperature, and many, such as the Gobi, experience freezing winters as well as scorching summers.
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Model answer: Open with strong stress on "not always hot". Pause after "Antarctica" and "Earth". Pronounce "technically", "precipitation" and "Gobi" carefully. Contrast "freezing winters" with "scorching summers" and end with a falling tone.
The Great Barrier Reef stretches for more than two thousand three hundred kilometres along the coast of Queensland. Visible from space, it is made up of nearly three thousand individual reefs and hundreds of islands. Tourism to the region generates billions of dollars annually.
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Model answer: Practise the long number "two thousand three hundred kilometres" so that it flows. Pause after "kilometres", "Queensland" and "space". Stress "nearly three thousand" and "hundreds of islands". Read the last sentence briskly and fall on "annually".
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: Cleaning the lab equipment properly prevents contamination between experiments.
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Model answer: Psychologists have shown that people remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones.
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Model answer: The chemistry laboratory is closed until further notice because of a water leak.
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 illustrates how many secondary school students study each of six foreign languages. English is by far the most common with 420,000 students, roughly double the figure for French at 210,000. Spanish is third with 175,000, and German has 95,000. Italian and Mandarin have the smallest numbers, with 40,000 and 25,000. The data shows a strong preference for widely spoken European languages.
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 Egyptian mummification, tied to beliefs about the afterlife, involved a roughly seventy-day process of organ removal, drying with natron salt, and linen wrapping, with quality varying by wealth. Modern CT scanning now lets researchers study mummies' diet, disease, and cause of death without unwrapping them, revealing new historical detail.
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: David criticizes targeted advertising for relying on tracking users never meaningfully consented to. Emma notes targeted ads fund many free online services. Frank distinguishes simple ad relevance from extensive cross-site tracking. They agree on stronger, clearer consent requirements and limits on cross-site tracking, preserving relevant ads and free services while addressing genuine privacy concerns.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: I've already waited forty minutes past my scheduled time, and now I'm hearing about a document requirement that was never mentioned when I booked this appointment. Is there any way to complete part of the process today and submit that document afterward, rather than starting the whole booking process over again from scratch?
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
Jazz emerged in the early twentieth century in New Orleans, a port city whose population included descendants of enslaved Africans, Creole musicians trained in European traditions, and immigrants from Italy, Ireland and the Caribbean. From this mixture came a music that combined the syncopated rhythms of ragtime, the emotional expressiveness of the blues and the instrumentation of military brass bands. What set jazz apart was improvisation: instead of performing a composition exactly as written, musicians invented new melodies over a familiar structure, reacting to one another in real time. The migration of Black Americans from the South to northern cities carried the music to Chicago and New York, and radio and recordings spread it worldwide during the 1920s. Its subsequent history is one of rapid stylistic change. Swing dominated the 1930s as a danceable big-band sound, bebop in the 1940s turned jazz into a demanding art form for listening, and later movements explored cool restraint, modal harmony and free improvisation. Throughout, jazz was associated with social change, as its mixed-race bands challenged segregation in a small but visible way, and musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington became international ambassadors for American culture. Today, the music is taught in conservatories and enjoyed on every continent, yet its vitality still depends on the spontaneity of live performance, which recordings can capture only imperfectly.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Jazz arose in New Orleans from a blend of African American, European and Caribbean influences, spread through migration and recordings, evolved through swing, bebop and later styles, and remains a global art form whose essential quality is the spontaneous improvisation of live performance.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
Self-driving cars are expected to become common on public roads within the next decade. Do the benefits of this technology outweigh the risks?
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Model answer: Autonomous vehicles are frequently presented as an inevitable and largely positive development, and on the whole I share that view, although important risks must be managed before the technology is trusted with our roads.
The potential benefits are considerable. Human error, including distraction, fatigue and drink-driving, causes the great majority of road accidents, and a well-designed autonomous system never gets tired or checks a phone. Self-driving cars could also grant independence to elderly or disabled people who cannot drive themselves, and by communicating with one another they may reduce traffic congestion and lower fuel consumption through smoother acceleration and braking.
However, the risks cannot be dismissed. Sensors and software can fail in unusual weather or unfamiliar situations, and several fatal accidents involving prototype vehicles have already raised difficult questions about how blame should be assigned when a machine, rather than a person, makes a fatal decision. There are also concerns about job losses among professional drivers and about the vulnerability of connected vehicles to hacking.
Given these considerations, I believe the technology should be introduced cautiously, with rigorous independent testing, clear legal rules on liability, and strong cybersecurity standards, rather than being rushed onto public roads to satisfy commercial competition. If these safeguards are established, the long-term safety and convenience benefits are likely to outweigh the risks; without them, public trust could collapse after a single high-profile failure.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
Many bat species navigate and hunt in complete darkness by emitting rapid, high-pitched calls and listening carefully to the echoes that back from nearby objects. By analysing tiny differences in the timing and pitch of these returning echoes, a bat can determine the size, shape, texture and even the speed of a potential meal, such as a moth, nearby. Some insects have evolved defences against this remarkable hunting method, including specialised structures that can detect a bat's calls, giving the insect a brief chance before the bat gets close enough to strike. Because a bat's own loud calls could otherwise deafen it, its ears contain small muscles that briefly hearing at the exact instant each call is produced, allowing the returning echo to be heard clearly a fraction of a second later. Engineers studying echolocation have drawn inspiration from bats when designing sonar systems submarines and other underwater vehicles.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
An increasing number of companies now use software to screen job applications before a human recruiter reviews them, scanning resumes for keywords, ranking candidates according to predicted suitability, or even analysing recorded video interviews for facial expressions and word choice. Proponents argue that such tools can process thousands of applications far more quickly and consistently than a human team, potentially reducing certain forms of bias by applying identical criteria to every candidate rather than relying on a recruiter's subjective first impression. However, researchers have repeatedly found that hiring algorithms can inherit and even amplify biases present in the historical data used to train them; if a company's past hiring favoured a particular demographic group, an algorithm trained on that data may learn to replicate the same pattern, effectively automating discrimination while appearing objective. Some jurisdictions have begun requiring companies to audit hiring algorithms for bias or to disclose when automated screening is used, though enforcement varies considerably and many candidates remain unaware that software, rather than a person, made the initial decision to reject their application. Critics argue that greater transparency and independent testing are essential before such tools can be trusted to make fair hiring decisions at scale.
1. According to the passage, which THREE of the following are true?
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.
Sleep apnea is a common but frequently undiagnosed condition in which a person's breathing repeatedly for brief periods during sleep, often because throat muscles relax excessively and partially block the airway. Because these breathing interruptions typically last only a matter of seconds and rarely fully wake the sleeper, many people with the condition remain entirely unaware that anything is and are instead simply left feeling persistently and inexplicably exhausted despite what feels, to them, like a full night's sleep. Left untreated over an extended period, sleep apnea has been associated with an increased long-term risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, since the repeated drops in blood oxygen level during the night place considerable on the cardiovascular system over time. A specialised overnight sleep study, in which breathing, oxygen levels and brain activity are all carefully monitored, is generally required to formally the condition with confidence. Effective treatments range from a specialised breathing device worn during sleep to simple lifestyle changes such as weight loss, and identifying the right treatment can improve both sleep quality and long-term cardiovascular health for most affected patients.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
Many mammals living in regions with harsh winters survive periods of extreme cold and scarce food by hibernating, a state involving dramatic reductions in body temperature, heart rate and metabolic activity that allow an animal to conserve energy for weeks or months at a time. Before entering hibernation, an animal such as a ground squirrel typically builds up substantial fat reserves, since it will rely entirely on this stored energy rather than regular feeding throughout the hibernation period. During deep hibernation, a ground squirrel's body temperature can fall to just a few degrees above freezing, and its heart may beat only a handful of times per minute, a dramatic reduction from its normal resting rate. Periodically, hibernating animals briefly rouse themselves, raising their body temperature and metabolism back toward normal for a short period before returning to their deeply suppressed state, though scientists are still investigating exactly why these periodic, energetically costly arousals occur. Understanding hibernation has attracted interest well beyond biology, since medical researchers hope that insights into how hibernating animals safely tolerate such extreme physiological changes might eventually inform treatments for human conditions involving reduced blood flow.
3. According to the passage, how do hibernating animals typically survive without regular feeding?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
About a quarter of the Netherlands lies below sea level, and much of it was once sea floor. The Dutch have spent a thousand years turning water into land. Early on, they built dykes and used windmills to pump water out of low-lying fields, creating what are called polders. A severe flood in nineteen fifty-three caused widespread damage across the southwest of the country, and the government responded with the Delta Works, a huge system of dams and storm surge barriers. Now, with sea level rising, Dutch engineers are changing their philosophy. Instead of simply building higher walls, they're giving rivers more room to flood in designated areas, and creating parks and wetlands that can store water safely. This approach, often called living with water, has attracted attention from other countries, including cities facing more frequent floods.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
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Model answer: The Dutch have long reclaimed land using dykes, windmills and polders, and after the severe 1953 flood they built the Delta Works. With sea level rising, they now emphasise living with water, giving rivers room to flood and creating wetlands, an approach that is attracting interest from other flood-prone countries and cities around the world.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
The layout of the letters on a standard keyboard looks random, but there's a story behind it. Christopher Latham Sholes designed an early typewriter in the eighteen seventies. The mechanical arms carrying the letters could jam if neighbouring keys were pressed in quick succession, so he arranged the layout to separate common letter pairs. According to a popular explanation, it was designed to slow typists down. Historians question this. They suggest the layout evolved gradually, partly to suit telegraph operators who were the first customers. Later, other layouts were proposed, such as the Dvorak keyboard, which claims greater efficiency. However, millions of people had already learned QWERTY, and the cost of retraining was too high. Economists often use it as an example of how an early standard can become locked in, even when better alternatives exist.
1. Which of the following are stated in the lecture?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
Unlike many animal calls, which are largely instinctive, the songs of many songbird species must actually be , and young birds go through a critical period during which they listen closely to adult of their own species and practise mimicking the pattern. Birds raised in isolation, without ever hearing this template, often develop abnormal, simplified songs as adults, showing that experience shapes the final . Some species also develop regional dialects, so a bird's song can reveal roughly which it grew up in. Researchers study this partly because it parallels how infants acquire .
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
Bird eggs come in a striking range of shapes, from the nearly spherical eggs of owls to the sharply pointed, asymmetric eggs of many cliff-nesting seabirds, and researchers have found this variation is linked less to a bird's evolutionary family tree than previously assumed and more closely to how and where a species flies and nests. Birds that are strong, fast fliers, needing a more streamlined body, tend to lay more elongated or asymmetric eggs, possibly because their narrower internal body cavity shapes the egg as it forms, while ground-nesting birds with less flight pressure on body shape tend to lay rounder eggs. The sharply pointed shape common among cliff-nesting seabirds may also help the egg roll in a tight circle rather than straight off a narrow ledge if accidentally bumped, reducing the risk of it falling to its destruction.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
Aquariums have learned that octopuses need far more mental stimulation than most other captive invertebrates, since a bored octopus will often find inventive, sometimes destructive, ways to occupy itself, including dismantling equipment or repeatedly squeezing through tiny gaps to explore. Keepers now regularly provide puzzle feeders, containers requiring an octopus to unscrew a lid or manipulate a latch to reach food, partly to keep the animal engaged and partly to study its problem-solving under controlled conditions. Some octopuses have even been observed reacting differently toward keepers who have treated them well compared with strangers.
3. Why do aquarium keepers provide octopuses with puzzle feeders, 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. Early fountain pens frequently leaked or delivered ink unevenly, since controlling the flow of liquid ink from a reservoir to the paper proved remarkably difficult to engineer reliably. A small slit cut down the centre of the metal nib, combined with a tiny drilled breather hole, helps manage ink flow precisely by letting air enter the reservoir at accurately the same rate ink leaves it.
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 40