A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 46
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.
Every year, thousands of students apply for scholarships, but many fail simply because they miss the deadline. Advisers recommend creating a calendar of important dates, preparing documents well in advance and asking teachers for references early, before they become too busy.
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Model answer: A practical text, so sound clear and helpful. Stress "thousands", "miss the deadline" and "early". Pause after "scholarships" and after "deadline". Make the three recommendations sound parallel, and give the last phrase, "before they become too busy", a lighter, falling ending.
Noise pollution is more than an annoyance. Prolonged exposure to loud environments has been linked to sleep disturbance, high blood pressure and difficulty concentrating. Planners can reduce the problem by building barriers, restricting night-time traffic and creating quiet green spaces.
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Model answer: Stress "more than an annoyance". Pause after "environments" and after "concentrating". Read the two lists, "sleep disturbance, high blood pressure and difficulty concentrating" and the planners' three actions, with clear list intonation. Fall on "spaces".
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: Rice is the main food for more than half of the world's population.
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Model answer: Remember to switch off your mobile phones before the seminar begins.
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Model answer: The Pacific Ocean is larger than all the continents combined.
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: The line graph shows how the population of Lagos grew between 1960 and 2020. It started at only 0.8 million, but rose steadily to 2.7 million in 1980 and 7.2 million in 2000. Growth then accelerated, reaching 10.6 million in 2010 and 15.4 million in 2020. Overall, the population has increased almost twentyfold in sixty years, and the curve becomes steeper over time.
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 rising atmospheric carbon dioxide lowers ocean pH, making water more acidic and harder for shellfish and corals to build calcium carbonate shells, sometimes dissolving existing ones. Oyster farmers already report larval struggles and losses. Because acidification affects plankton at the base of marine food webs, effects could spread through entire ecosystems.
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 banning private cars downtown to cut pollution and reclaim space. Isla raises concerns about businesses, deliveries, and accessibility for people who can't use public transport. Jack proposes exceptions for deliveries and accessibility permits during a general ban. They agree exceptions should narrow over time as public transport and pedestrian infrastructure improve.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: I honestly didn't check the exact limit before traveling, and I think I may be carrying slightly more currency than allowed. I'd like to declare it properly right now rather than risk any issue later. Could you tell me exactly what the correct procedure is from here, and whether any paperwork or fee applies in this situation.
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
When astronomers measure how fast stars orbit within a galaxy, they find something puzzling. According to Newton's laws, stars near the edge should move more slowly than those near the centre, because the gravitational pull of the visible matter weakens with distance. Instead, they orbit at nearly the same speed, as if the galaxy contained far more mass than can be seen. The same discrepancy appears in the motion of galaxies within clusters and in the way light from distant objects is bent by gravity. To explain these observations, physicists have proposed the existence of dark matter, an invisible substance that does not emit, absorb or reflect light but exerts gravitational force. Calculations suggest that it makes up about eighty-five percent of all the matter in the universe. Despite decades of effort, no experiment has detected a dark matter particle directly. Underground detectors filled with liquid xenon have recorded nothing conclusive, and particle colliders have found no sign of the candidates that theorists once favoured. This has encouraged rival explanations, such as modifying the laws of gravity at very low accelerations. However, such alternatives struggle to account for all the evidence at once, particularly the patterns in the faint radiation left over from the early universe. For the moment, dark matter remains the leading hypothesis, but its true nature is still one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Because galaxies rotate as though they contain far more mass than is visible, physicists postulate dark matter, and although no particle has been detected and alternative theories exist, none explains all the evidence, so its nature remains a major unresolved question.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
Funding for the arts, such as theatres, museums and orchestras, is often reduced in difficult economic times. Some people think that governments should not spend public money on the arts at all. To what extent do you agree?
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Model answer: When budgets are tight, cultural institutions are often the first to lose funding, because they seem less essential than hospitals or schools. I strongly disagree that public money should not be spent on the arts, although I accept that spending must be justified.
First, the arts provide benefits that the market cannot easily deliver. A commercial theatre must charge high ticket prices to survive, so without subsidies, opera, classical music or experimental drama would be available only to the wealthy. Public funding makes it possible for everyone, including schoolchildren, to experience them, which enriches society as a whole.
Second, culture has a practical value. Museums and festivals draw tourists, and creative industries such as design, film and publishing employ large numbers of people. Money invested in a local arts centre often returns to the community through spending in nearby cafes, hotels and shops. Studies also link participation in creative activities with improved mental health and stronger community ties.
However, arts organisations should not expect unlimited support. They should be transparent about how they use taxpayers' money, seek income from sponsors and audiences, and try to reach people who do not currently attend. In hard times, difficult decisions are unavoidable, but eliminating public support altogether would impoverish national life for the sake of small savings.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
When magma rises through cracks in the Earth's crust, the pressure it can trigger a violent eruption. Volcanologists monitor small earthquakes and changes in ground shape, since these signals often a major event by weeks or months. Some volcanoes erupt gently, producing slow-moving lava flows, while others explode with tremendous force, ash and rock high into the atmosphere. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 released so much sulphur dioxide that global temperatures slightly for the following two years. Despite decades of research, predicting the exact timing of an eruption extremely difficult, and communities near active volcanoes must rely on continuous monitoring rather than precise forecasts.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
Extremophiles are organisms, mostly microorganisms, capable of surviving and even thriving in conditions once assumed to be completely lethal to life, including extreme heat, intense pressure, high acidity or radiation levels far beyond what most cells can tolerate. Certain bacteria discovered near deep-sea hydrothermal vents flourish at temperatures that would cause most proteins to break down almost instantly, while other microorganisms have been found living within Antarctic ice, apparently dormant for extended periods yet still capable of reviving once conditions improve. Scientists study extremophiles partly out of pure curiosity about the limits of biology, but also because enzymes extracted from these organisms often remain stable under conditions that would destroy ordinary enzymes, making them valuable for industrial processes such as detergent manufacturing or DNA analysis techniques that require repeated heating. The existence of life in such hostile environments on Earth has also encouraged astrobiologists to reconsider where life might exist elsewhere in the solar system, since moons and planets once dismissed as far too hostile for any organism might, in principle, harbour extremophile-like life forms in hidden pockets of liquid water or chemical energy.
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.
Film noir, a style of American cinema most closely associated with the 1940s and 1950s, is instantly recognisable for its use of dramatic shadows, rain-soaked city streets and morally ambiguous characters who rarely fit neatly into simple categories of hero or villain. Directors working in this style often relied on stark lighting contrasts to a pervasive atmosphere of tension and unease, frequently filming key scenes at night or through the distorting reflections of rain-streaked windows. The genre's protagonists, typically private investigators or ordinary people drawn unwillingly into crime, are often portrayed as cynical figures whose moral compromises reflect a broader postwar disillusionment that many critics believe the style helped . Female characters in film noir frequently subvert the traditional damsel role of earlier cinema, often as manipulative or dangerous figures whose true motives the audience cannot fully until late in the story. Although the classic period of film noir eventually faded, its visual style and morally complex characters continue to strongly crime films and television produced today.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
Dark patterns are deliberately designed user interface elements, commonly encountered on websites and mobile applications, specifically intended to subtly manipulate or actively mislead users into making decisions they might not otherwise knowingly make, such as unintentionally subscribing to a recurring paid service or unknowingly sharing considerably more personal data than they genuinely intended. Common examples include deliberately confusing cancellation processes that require navigating through numerous unnecessary steps, pre-selected checkboxes that automatically opt a user into additional purchases or marketing communications unless the user actively and carefully notices and unchecks them, and urgent-sounding, artificially generated countdown timers designed to pressure a user into an impulsive, hurried purchase decision. Consumer protection researchers argue that dark patterns exploit well-documented, predictable weaknesses in ordinary human decision-making, particularly a natural tendency to click through a screen quickly without pausing to carefully read every single word of dense, unfamiliar text. In response to mounting public and regulatory concern, some governments have begun introducing specific new regulations explicitly prohibiting certain especially manipulative dark pattern designs, though enforcement remains genuinely difficult given the sheer number of websites and applications in active daily use and the sheer creative variety of deceptive design techniques that companies continue to actively develop.
3. According to the passage, what do dark patterns typically exploit?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
In nineteen ninety-five, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after being absent for about seventy years. Ecologists were curious what would happen, and the results surprised many. The wolves hunted elk, which had been overgrazing the river valleys, but they also changed the elk's behaviour. Elk began avoiding open areas where they could be ambushed, and as a result willow and aspen trees started to recover along the streams. Beavers returned to use the willows, and their dams created ponds that supported fish, amphibians and birds. Some scientists describe this chain of effects as a trophic cascade. Now, it's fair to say that the story has become simplified in popular videos. Researchers point out that climate, other predators and human hunting outside the park also influenced elk numbers, so the wolves were one important factor among several.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
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Model answer: Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone reduced elk overgrazing and changed elk behaviour, which allowed willows and aspens to recover, brought back beavers and benefited many other species in a trophic cascade. However, researchers caution that climate, other predators and hunting also mattered, so the popular story is somewhat oversimplified and the wolves were only one factor.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
The Panama Canal saves ships a voyage of about eight thousand nautical miles around South America. Interestingly, it doesn't run at sea level. The middle section is a large artificial lake, Gatun Lake, which sits about twenty-six metres above the ocean, and ships are lifted up and lowered down through sets of locks. Each lock is a chamber with gates at both ends. Water flows in from the lake purely by gravity, with no pumps, until the water level inside matches the next level, then the gates open. This design, completed in nineteen fourteen, was chosen because digging a sea-level channel through the mountains would have taken much longer. Nowadays, the canal also faces water shortages during droughts.
1. Which of the following are stated about the canal?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
As reefs decline worldwide from warming seas and pollution, scientists have developed methods to actively rebuild damaged coral, rather than hoping natural recovery will keep . One technique involves growing small fragments of coral on underwater frames in a nursery, where they grow undisturbed before being transplanted onto a damaged . Researchers are also breeding coral strains that tolerate warmer water, hoping these hardier corals can replace populations wiped out by repeated bleaching . Restoration alone cannot fix reefs if temperatures keep rising, so most scientists describe it as buying valuable rather than a permanent .
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
Mixing light and mixing paint produce different, sometimes confusingly opposite, results, because they follow different rules. Combining red, green and blue light, as a screen does, produces white light, since each added colour adds more wavelengths to what the eye receives, a system called additive mixing. Mixing paints works the opposite way, called subtractive mixing, because each pigment absorbs certain wavelengths of light and reflects the rest; combining many pigments removes more and more wavelengths until, in principle, nothing much is reflected and the mixture approaches black or a murky brown, rather than white. This is why printers use cyan, magenta and yellow inks, chosen specifically because they subtract colour efficiently, while screens use red, green and blue light, chosen because they add colour efficiently.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
Deep beneath the ocean surface, certain locations contain pools of water so salty and dense that they form a distinct layer sitting on the seafloor without mixing into the surrounding, much less salty ocean water above, similar to how oil sits on top of water. These brine pools are inhospitable to most marine life due to their extreme salt concentration and, in some cases, dissolved gases, so ordinary fish generally avoid entering them altogether. Despite the harsh conditions, specially adapted microbes do manage to survive within some pools, extracting energy from the unusual chemistry.
3. What happens to ordinary marine animals near a deep-sea brine pool, 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. Unlike birds, whose wings are covered in feathers, bats fly using a thin, flexible membrane of skin stretched between elongated finger bones, an arrangement that gives them remarkably precise control over wing shape in mid-flight. This flexible membrane can curve and twist in ways a rigid feathered wing simply cannot, letting bats suddenly change direction, pause briefly, and squeeze through surprisingly narrow gaps between branches, often with greater agility than most birds achieve at comparable tiny sizes.
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
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