A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 43
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.
Renaissance artists revolutionised painting by mastering linear perspective. By making parallel lines converge toward a single vanishing point, they created the illusion of depth on a flat surface. Leonardo da Vinci went further, using subtle gradations of light and shadow to give his figures a lifelike, three-dimensional quality.
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Model answer: Stress "revolutionised" and "linear perspective". Pause after "perspective" and after "point". Say "illusion" and "gradations" slowly. The final sentence is long, so group it as "Leonardo da Vinci went further" and then "using subtle gradations of light and shadow", before finishing on "lifelike, three-dimensional quality".
Remote work has changed how companies think about offices. Many employees report higher productivity at home, yet managers worry about weaker team cohesion and fewer spontaneous conversations. As a result, hybrid arrangements, combining two or three office days with home working, have become increasingly common.
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Model answer: Sound confident and even. Stress "changed", "higher productivity" and "weaker team cohesion" to mark the contrast around "yet". Pause after "As a result". Say the numbers in "two or three" clearly, and finish with falling intonation on "common".
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: Before submitting your essay, check the spelling and the reference list carefully.
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Model answer: Some people find it easier to learn by listening than by reading.
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Model answer: Population growth in cities puts enormous pressure on housing and transport.
Describe Image
Describe the image in detail.
| 2015 | 2019 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petrol | 1250 | 1200 | 850 |
| Diesel | 1180 | 620 | 210 |
| Hybrid | 90 | 240 | 520 |
| Electric | 15 | 60 | 310 |
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 table shows new car sales by fuel type in 2015, 2019 and 2023. Petrol and diesel were dominant in 2015, at 1,250 and 1,180 thousand, but diesel fell dramatically to just 210 thousand by 2023. Petrol also declined, to 850. Meanwhile hybrids grew from 90 to 520 thousand and electric cars from only 15 to 310 thousand. Cleaner engines have therefore replaced diesel as the main alternative.
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 Silk Road as a network of routes, not a single road, linking China and the Mediterranean for around two thousand years. Beyond silk, it carried spices, technology, religions, and diseases through many intermediaries and oasis towns. Because trade passed through so many hands, historians now often call it the Silk Roads to reflect its complexity.
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: Ben supports banning smartphones during school hours to reduce distraction and improve academic performance. Carla worries this cuts off emergency parent contact and legitimate school uses. David proposes restricting phones only during lessons, not breaks. They agree on this middle ground, supplemented by an office emergency contact procedure, balancing focus with safety and practicality.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: This jacket now has a visible stain that definitely wasn't there when I dropped it off, it only had the original mark I asked you to remove. This new mark looks like it happened during your cleaning process. Could you either fix this properly at no extra charge, or compensate me for the damage if it can't be removed.
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
Peer review is the process by which scientific papers are evaluated by independent experts before they are published. An editor sends a submitted manuscript to two or three specialists, who assess whether the methods are sound, the conclusions follow from the evidence and the work makes a genuine contribution, and who recommend acceptance, revision or rejection. The system is regarded as the cornerstone of scientific quality control, and readers often treat publication in a peer-reviewed journal as a mark of reliability. Yet the process has significant flaws. Reviewers are usually unpaid volunteers with little time, and studies in which errors were deliberately inserted into manuscripts have shown that many reviewers fail to spot most of them. Reviews can also be biased in favour of well-known authors and prestigious institutions, or against unconventional ideas that challenge established views. Delays of several months are common, and the system offers little protection against outright fraud, which is generally discovered only after publication. Several reforms have been proposed. Some journals now conceal the identities of authors from reviewers, others publish the reviews alongside the paper, and a growing number of researchers post preliminary versions of their work publicly so that a wider community can comment. Many scientists maintain that, despite its imperfections, peer review still improves papers and filters out weak work, and that the question is how to improve it, not whether to abandon it.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Peer review is widely regarded as the guarantor of scientific quality, but because reviewers are overworked, biased and poorly placed to detect errors or fraud, reforms such as anonymous authorship, open reports and public preprints are being tried rather than abandoning a system that still improves papers.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
Some countries have banned single-use plastic bags, straws and cutlery in shops and restaurants. Is banning these items an effective way to reduce plastic pollution?
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Model answer: Bans on single-use plastic items such as bags, straws and cutlery have spread rapidly in recent years, and I believe they are a useful, though limited, part of the response to plastic pollution.
The strongest argument for such bans is their visible and immediate impact. Plastic bags and straws are used briefly, often for only a few minutes, yet they persist in the environment for centuries, harming marine animals that mistake fragments for food and clogging drainage systems in many cities. Because reusable alternatives exist and are usually inexpensive, bans on these specific items impose relatively little inconvenience on consumers while removing a significant and unnecessary source of waste.
At the same time, critics correctly point out that bags and straws represent only a small fraction of total plastic waste compared with packaging, industrial use and textiles, so a ban alone will not solve the broader plastic pollution problem. Some replacement products, such as certain paper or biodegradable alternatives, also carry their own environmental costs in production, and enforcement can be inconsistent, with some banned items still available informally.
For these reasons, I see such bans as a sensible and popular first step rather than a complete solution. Governments should combine them with broader measures, including extended producer responsibility for packaging, investment in recycling infrastructure and incentives for companies to redesign products with less plastic overall, so that visible bans on a few items are matched by less visible but more significant reductions elsewhere.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
A single handful of healthy soil can contain billions of microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, that a crucial role in breaking down dead plant and animal material into nutrients that living plants can absorb. Certain fungi form thread-like networks that connect directly to plant roots, exchanging nutrients from the soil sugars produced by the plant through photosynthesis. Intensive farming practices, including heavy use of chemical fertiliser and repeated ploughing, can disrupt these microbial communities, leaving soil retain water and support healthy plant growth over time. Researchers increasingly argue that a diverse and active soil microbiome is just as important to sustainable agriculture as the visible crop growing above ground. Farmers who adopt practices such as reduced ploughing and crop rotation often report improvements in soil health just a few growing seasons.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
Open-plan offices, in which walls and partitions between desks are minimised or removed entirely, became popular partly on the promise that removing physical barriers between employees would increase collaboration, spontaneous conversation and a sense of shared purpose across a company. In practice, however, several large studies tracking employee behaviour after a move to open-plan layouts have found the opposite effect: face-to-face interaction between colleagues often decreases rather than increases, as employees, seeking a degree of privacy and freedom from constant visual and auditory distraction, instead turn to email, instant messaging or headphones to reduce unwanted interruption. Open-plan layouts have also been linked in some research to higher reported stress levels and reduced ability to concentrate on demanding tasks, since background conversation and general office noise are difficult to filter out consistently over an entire working day. In response to these findings, some companies have redesigned their offices to include a mix of open collaborative areas alongside quieter private spaces or booths that employees can use when focused, individual work is required, attempting to capture some collaborative benefit without the persistent noise and distraction associated with a purely open layout.
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.
Biometric authentication systems verify a person's identity using measurable physical characteristics, such as a fingerprint, iris pattern or voice, that are generally far more difficult for an impostor to convincingly than a traditional password, which can be guessed, stolen or simply forgotten by its rightful owner. Because a person cannot easily change their fingerprint or iris pattern the way they might change a compromised password, security experts emphasise that biometric data, once stolen or leaked, cannot simply be the way a traditional password can, creating a potentially permanent security vulnerability if that data is ever compromised. Many modern devices now combine biometric authentication with more conventional methods, such as a numeric passcode, requiring both in order to overall security rather than relying on any single authentication method alone. Privacy advocates have also raised concerns about how securely companies the sensitive biometric data they collect from users, since a serious data breach involving such deeply personal information could have consequences considerably more severe than the theft of an ordinary password.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
The Earth's rigid outer shell is broken into a number of large tectonic plates that move slowly relative to one another, interacting along three main types of boundary, each producing distinct geological features. At a divergent boundary, two plates move apart from each other, allowing molten rock to rise from below and form new crust, a process responsible for the ongoing creation of new ocean floor along mid-ocean ridges. At a convergent boundary, by contrast, two plates move toward each other, and where one plate is composed of denser oceanic crust, it is typically forced beneath the other in a process called subduction, often generating powerful earthquakes and, over time, chains of volcanoes along the overlying plate's edge. At a transform boundary, two plates instead slide horizontally past one another without significant crust being created or destroyed, a type of movement that can nonetheless build up considerable stress along the boundary before being released suddenly as a powerful earthquake. California's San Andreas Fault is a well-known example of this third type of boundary, where the gradual, uneven sliding motion between two plates has produced numerous significant earthquakes throughout the region's recorded history.
3. According to the passage, what typically happens at a convergent plate boundary?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
Mangroves are trees that grow in salty water along tropical coastlines, with tangled roots that rise above the mud. They may not look inviting, but they're among the most valuable ecosystems on Earth. Their roots slow down waves, which reduces erosion and protects coastal communities from storms. In the two thousand and four Indian Ocean tsunami, villages behind mangrove belts often suffered less damage. The roots also provide nurseries for fish, crabs and shrimp, so local fisheries depend on them. Furthermore, mangroves store carbon in their soil at a much higher rate per hectare than most land forests. Despite all this, about a third of the world's mangroves have been lost in fifty years, cleared mainly for shrimp farms and coastal development. Restoration projects are underway, though success depends on involving local people and choosing the right sites.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
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Model answer: Mangroves protect coasts by slowing waves, provide nurseries for fisheries and store large amounts of carbon, yet about a third have been destroyed, mainly for shrimp farms and development. Restoration projects are underway, but they only succeed when local communities are involved and suitable sites are chosen carefully, rather than simply planting trees wherever space is available.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
According to popular legend, coffee's stimulating effects were first noticed in Ethiopia when a goat herder saw his goats behaving unusually energetically after eating berries from a certain shrub. Whatever the exact origin, coffee cultivation and drinking spread from the Ethiopian highlands to Yemen by around the fifteenth century, where Sufi communities used it to stay alert during long nights of prayer. From Yemen, coffee houses spread through the Ottoman Empire, becoming lively centres for conversation, music and games, and by the seventeenth century the drink had reached Europe, where coffee houses became meeting places for merchants, writers and early scientists to exchange ideas. European powers later established coffee plantations in their colonies in the Americas and Asia, often using enslaved or forced labour, which shifted the centre of global coffee production far from its African origins and reshaped the economies of several colonised regions.
1. Which of the following does the speaker mention?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
Many ancient calendars were based on the moon's roughly twenty-nine-day cycle, which was easy to observe but drifted out of alignment with the solar year that governs the . The ancient Egyptians instead based their calendar on the solar year and the annual flooding of the Nile, giving twelve months of thirty days plus five extra . The calendar most of the world uses today descends from a Roman , later corrected in the sixteenth century to fix a slow drift that had accumulated over . Some countries still use lunar calendars alongside the system.
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
Male humpback whales produce long, complex songs during the breeding season, composed of repeating phrases arranged into longer sequences that can last twenty minutes or more and be repeated for hours. What fascinates researchers is that these songs change over time, and whales within the same population tend to sing very similar versions, gradually adopting new phrases together almost like a slowly evolving cultural fashion; songs recorded off one coast have even been tracked spreading to populations thousands of kilometres away over subsequent years. The exact purpose of the songs remains debated, with attracting mates and establishing some kind of ranking among males both suggested, but the striking cultural transmission itself is now well documented.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
Early cloth umbrellas offered only limited rain protection, since untreated fabric quickly became waterlogged and heavy, and water could still seep through during a sustained downpour, making them only marginally useful in genuinely wet weather. Manufacturers tried oiling or waxing the fabric, which helped somewhat but made the material stiff, prone to cracking, and unpleasantly smelly, especially once left folded and damp after use. Synthetic waterproof fabrics developed in the twentieth century finally solved this more elegantly, producing canopies that were genuinely waterproof, light and durable, without the stiffness or odour of earlier oiled designs.
3. What problem did early oiled or waxed umbrella fabric create, 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. Chameleons change colour mainly by adjusting the spacing between tiny crystal structures within a special skin layer, which alters which wavelengths of light are reflected back to an observer. This is notably different from simply moving pigment around, and it lets a calm chameleon appear faint while an excited or alarmed one can rapidly shift toward much darker, more vivid colours within seconds.
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 44