A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 41
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.
The Amazon rainforest produces a significant portion of the world's oxygen and stores billions of tonnes of carbon. Deforestation, driven largely by cattle ranching and agriculture, threatens this balance. Scientists warn that if the forest loses too much of its canopy, it could shift from a carbon sink to a carbon source.
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Model answer: Say "significant" and "billions of tonnes" with clear stress. Pause after "carbon" and after "agriculture". Do not swallow the ending of "deforestation". In the last sentence, stress "too much", pause after "canopy", and contrast "sink" with "source" using a rising then falling tone.
Shakespeare's plays continue to be performed nearly four hundred years after his death. Their appeal lies partly in their language, but also in their exploration of universal themes such as ambition, jealousy and love. Each generation of directors finds new ways to stage them.
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Model answer: Pause after "death" and after "language". Stress "universal themes" and give the three nouns "ambition, jealousy and love" a list rhythm. Say "generation" and "directors" clearly. End the final sentence with a light falling tone on "them".
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: Prices in the university shop are lower than in most supermarkets.
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Model answer: The bus to the airport leaves from the station every twenty minutes.
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Model answer: The orchestra rehearses in the main hall every Tuesday evening.
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 line graph illustrates changes in annual tuition fees between 1998 and 2024. Fees were about 1,000 pounds in 1998 and increased only slightly, to 1,150, by 2004. There was a dramatic rise to 3,290 in 2010 and 9,000 in 2012. Since then the line is almost flat, moving from 9,250 in 2016 to 9,535 in 2024. The biggest change therefore happened over just two years, around 2010 to 2012.
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 how streaming shifted entertainment payment from single purchases to flat monthly subscriptions, driving platforms to maximize retention through algorithms and autoplay. Rising content costs and competition have pushed prices up and introduced ad-supported tiers. The lecturer notes growing subscription fatigue may be driving viewers toward bundles or piracy.
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: Frank favors shifting libraries toward digital collections for convenience and space savings. Grace warns this would exclude patrons without reliable internet or devices. Henry adds that libraries serve important physical community functions digital collections can't replace. They agree on expanding digital access as a complement to, not a replacement for, physical libraries and their community role.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: I understand it's slightly over the limit, but it contains fragile items I'd really rather not check into the hold. Would it be possible to let it through as a courtesy this time, given it's only marginally over? If not, could I transfer a couple of items into my other bag instead of paying the checked fee?
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
Universal basic income is the idea that every citizen should receive a regular cash payment from the government, regardless of employment status or wealth. Supporters see it as a simple way to eliminate extreme poverty, reduce the bureaucracy of means-tested benefits and prepare societies for a future in which automation may eliminate many jobs. Opponents counter that it would be prohibitively expensive, that giving money to the wealthy is wasteful, and that guaranteed income would reduce people's willingness to work. Because the idea has rarely been implemented on a national scale, most evidence comes from limited pilot programmes. In Finland, an experiment gave two thousand unemployed people a monthly sum for two years. Recipients did not work significantly less than a comparison group, and they reported lower stress and greater trust in institutions, although employment rose only slightly. Trials in Kenya and India have reported improvements in nutrition, schooling and small business activity. Sceptics reply that pilots differ from permanent programmes, since people may behave differently if they know payments will end, and that a scheme covering an entire population would require higher taxes that could alter behaviour in unforeseen ways. The evidence so far is encouraging but incomplete, and the fundamental question is as much political as economic: whether societies are prepared to redefine the relationship between work and the right to a minimum standard of living.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Pilot trials of universal basic income have shown improvements in wellbeing without a large fall in employment, but sceptics note that temporary experiments differ from permanent nationwide schemes, so the debate ultimately turns on cost and on how societies view work and minimum living standards.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
Governments should prohibit children under the age of sixteen from using social media platforms. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
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Model answer: I agree that young teenagers need stronger protection online, but I doubt that an outright ban is the best way to provide it.
The case for restriction is easy to understand. Social media companies design their products to be as engaging as possible, and children are particularly vulnerable to constant notifications, comparison with others and exposure to bullying or inappropriate material. Many parents feel powerless when their child is the only one in a class without an account, so a legal minimum age would remove that pressure and give families a clear rule to rely on.
Nevertheless, a ban would be difficult to enforce. Children can easily give a false age or use a parent's account, and verifying identity for everyone would require collecting sensitive personal data, creating new privacy risks. A ban might also drive young people towards less regulated corners of the internet, where they would be even harder to protect. In addition, these platforms are also a means of keeping in touch with friends, learning new skills and finding communities, especially for teenagers who feel isolated in real life.
A more effective approach would be to hold companies responsible for safe design. Governments could require strict privacy settings by default, limit addictive features such as endless scrolling for younger users, and impose heavy fines for failing to remove harmful content. Combined with education in schools about responsible use, this would reduce the real dangers without cutting children off entirely from an important part of modern life.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
In 1901, divers recovered a badly corroded bronze device from an ancient shipwreck near a small Greek island, an object that be recognised as one of the most sophisticated known artefacts of the ancient world. Detailed examination using modern imaging technology eventually revealed dozens of intricate bronze gears, arranged so precisely that the device track the movements of the sun, moon and possibly several visible planets across the sky. Historians estimate that the mechanism was built more than two thousand years ago, centuries before instruments of comparable mechanical complexity have existed elsewhere. Its existence suggests that ancient Greek craftsmen possessed engineering knowledge that was later largely lost, not matched again in Europe until mechanical clocks were developed well over a thousand years afterward. The device continues to be studied by historians who hope to fully every one of its functions.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
Environmental agencies increasingly rely on satellite imagery to track deforestation across remote regions that would be difficult or dangerous to monitor from the ground. Satellites equipped with sensors capable of detecting changes in vegetation cover can identify newly cleared land within days, allowing authorities to respond far more quickly than was possible when deforestation was typically discovered only during infrequent ground patrols or aerial surveys. Some systems can even distinguish between different causes of forest loss, such as small-scale clearing for subsistence farming, industrial logging, and fires, based on the visual pattern of the cleared area. This capability has proven especially valuable in areas governed by countries with limited resources for extensive ground-based enforcement, since a single satellite can effectively monitor vast, otherwise inaccessible territory continuously. Despite these advances, satellite monitoring alone cannot guarantee that illegal logging is stopped; local governments and communities must still act on the information provided, and enforcement gaps, corruption, and a shortage of on-the-ground personnel mean that clearing detected from space sometimes continues for weeks before any meaningful intervention occurs.
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.
The uppermost layer of a tropical rainforest, known as the canopy, forms a dense, largely continuous roof of leaves and branches that the forest floor far below from most direct sunlight. This layer supports an extraordinary concentration of biodiversity, since countless species of insects, birds and mammals spend their entire lives within the canopy and rarely, if ever, descend to the ground. Because the canopy is difficult and dangerous to access directly, researchers have developed specialised techniques, including rope systems and elevated walkways, to this largely hidden layer of the forest. Scientists estimate that a substantial proportion of rainforest species remain entirely to science, many of them likely confined to the canopy alone. Continued destruction of rainforest habitat therefore risks eliminating species before researchers even have the chance to their existence.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented movement of population from rural agricultural areas into rapidly growing industrial cities across much of Europe and North America, a shift driven largely by the expanding availability of factory employment alongside declining opportunities in traditional agricultural work as farming itself became increasingly mechanised. This rapid urban growth frequently outpaced a city's existing capacity to provide adequate housing, sanitation and clean water, resulting in severely overcrowded slum districts where infectious diseases such as cholera could spread rapidly among densely packed, poorly served populations. Public health crises resulting from these dire urban conditions eventually prompted many city governments to invest substantially in new civic infrastructure, including modern sewage systems, reliable piped water supplies and, in some cities, new public parks specifically intended to provide urban residents with much-needed access to open space and fresh air. Historians studying this transformative period generally regard nineteenth-century urbanisation as a genuinely double-edged development, one that generated tremendous new economic opportunity and wealth for some, while simultaneously imposing serious hardship and significant health risks on many others, particularly among the urban poor.
3. According to the passage, what eventually prompted many cities to invest in new civic infrastructure?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
Many people believe memory works like a video camera, recording events accurately so they can be replayed later. Psychologists have shown that this is wrong. Memory is reconstructive. Each time we recall something, we rebuild it from fragments, and the result can be influenced by what we've heard since. In a classic experiment, participants watched film of a car accident. Those who were asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other estimated higher speeds than those asked about the cars hitting each other, and later some even remembered broken glass that never appeared. This matters in courtrooms, where eyewitness testimony can be very persuasive. Confidence isn't a reliable sign of accuracy, and mistaken identification has contributed to wrongful convictions. As a result, many police forces have redesigned identity parades and now avoid leading questions when interviewing witnesses.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
Show sample answer
Model answer: Memory is reconstructive rather than a recording, so recalled events can be altered by later information; in a classic experiment, the wording of a question changed witnesses' speed estimates and even created false memories. Because confident eyewitnesses can be wrong, police have changed identity parades and stopped using leading questions.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
In the eighteen sixties, French winemakers asked Louis Pasteur why their wine kept turning sour. Pasteur examined it under a microscope and found that unwanted microorganisms were responsible. He discovered that heating the wine gently to a certain temperature, without boiling it, killed those organisms while keeping the flavour. The technique was later applied to milk, which was a major source of diseases such as tuberculosis. Widespread pasteurisation of milk in the early twentieth century contributed greatly to reducing infant deaths. Pasteur's work also supported the germ theory of disease, the idea that many illnesses are caused by microorganisms, which was still controversial at the time. Today, pasteurisation is used for juices, beer and eggs as well.
1. Which THREE statements are correct?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
The sun constantly releases charged particles called the solar wind, and occasionally much larger bursts known as solar flares, which can slam into Earth's magnetic field within a day of . These events, called space weather, can disrupt satellite electronics, distort radio signals, and, in extreme cases, damage power grids by inducing unexpected in long transmission lines. Because satellites are increasingly for navigation and forecasting, agencies now monitor the sun continuously, hoping to give operators enough warning to shut down vulnerable temporarily before a major solar storm .
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
Before the electric telegraph, sending a message across long distances required a physical courier, and even urgent news might take days or weeks to arrive. The development of practical electric telegraphs in the eighteen thirties and forties, using a code of short and long pulses to represent letters, transformed long-distance communication almost overnight, allowing messages to travel along wires at nearly the speed of light rather than the speed of a horse or ship. Governments, railways and newspapers rapidly adopted the technology, and by the eighteen sixties, undersea cables connected continents, laying the groundwork for the globally interconnected communication networks that would eventually include the telephone, radio and, much later, the internet.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
The thermos flask relies on a design first developed in the late nineteenth century by a Scottish scientist studying how to keep gases at extremely low temperatures for laboratory experiments, long before anyone thought to use it for keeping a drink hot or cold. The key feature is a double-walled glass container with a vacuum between the two walls, since a vacuum is an extremely poor conductor of heat, so very little transfers between the inner and outer layers. A German company later recognised the commercial potential, began manufacturing vacuum flasks for household use, and ran a competition to name the product.
3. What was the original purpose of the vacuum-walled design later used in thermos flasks?
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 household refrigerators were common, fresh milk generally spoiled within a day or two, so many families relied on a milkman who delivered bottles directly to the doorstep early each morning. Empty glass bottles were simply left out to be collected and refilled, a practical further example of a reusable packaging system that faded once home refrigeration made frequent delivery largely unnecessary.
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 42