A2–C2 · PTE Academic
PTE Academic Practice Test 6
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.
Sleep researchers have discovered that the brain does not simply switch off at night. During deep sleep, it consolidates memories, transferring information from short-term storage to long-term networks. Students who sleep well after studying typically remember far more than those who stay awake, which suggests that late-night revision may be counterproductive.
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Model answer: Do not rush the opening sentence; stress "not simply switch off". Pause after "deep sleep" and after "memories". Say "consolidates" and "counterproductive" slowly, syllable by syllable. Lower your pitch on "long-term networks" to close the sentence, and let the last clause fall gently.
Repeat Sentence
You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it.
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Model answer: Advertising can influence what we buy without our realising it.
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Model answer: Sharks have existed for hundreds of millions of years.
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Model answer: He decided to change his major from law to environmental science.
Describe Image
Describe the image in detail.
NigeriaGermany
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 compares the number of internet users per hundred people in Nigeria and Germany from 2000 to 2020. Germany started far ahead, with 30 users in 2000, and rose quickly to 65 by 2004 before levelling off at 91 in 2020. Nigeria began close to zero but grew steadily, reaching 55 in 2020. The gap widened to about 60 points by 2008 and has since narrowed to 36 points in 2020.
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 volcanic ash consists of sharp rock and glass particles that can melt inside jet engines and cause failure. The two thousand ten Eyjafjallajökull eruption grounded European flights for nearly a week, stranding millions despite the distant ash cloud. Since then, better satellite tracking and rerouting protocols have improved aviation's response.
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 favors expanding self-driving cars since they already outperform average human drivers on safety. Emma worries about edge cases and unclear liability when accidents occur. Frank agrees the technology keeps improving but says legal frameworks need to catch up. They agree wider deployment should proceed alongside clearer liability laws rather than waiting for flawless technology.
Respond to a Situation
Listen to the situation and respond as if you were in it.
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Model answer: You're about four hours later than scheduled, and I never received a call explaining the delay, which has really disrupted my whole day and my building's allowed moving window. I'd like us to talk to your office afterward about a discount for the delay, but for now, let's get started quickly since we're already behind schedule.
Writing
Summarize Written Text
Read the passage and write a one-sentence summary.
Sleep is not simply a period of rest for the brain; it is an active phase during which newly acquired information is processed and stored. Researchers distinguish between two main stages of sleep that seem to serve different functions. During deep, slow-wave sleep, the hippocampus, a structure involved in forming recent memories, repeatedly replays the day's experiences to the cortex, gradually transferring them to long-term storage. Rapid eye movement sleep, by contrast, appears to help integrate these memories with existing knowledge and to support creative problem-solving by forging unexpected associations. Experiments have repeatedly shown the practical consequences of this division of labour. In one well-known study, participants who learned a list of word pairs and then slept performed markedly better on a recall test the following morning than those who had remained awake for the same length of time. Other work suggests that even a short afternoon nap can improve retention of factual material. Conversely, sleep deprivation impairs the brain's ability to absorb new information the next day, so a student who stays up all night to cram may actually undermine the very learning they are trying to secure. Scientists caution that the mechanisms are still not fully understood and that individual needs vary, but the evidence strongly indicates that adequate sleep is a necessary condition for effective learning rather than a luxury to be sacrificed under pressure.
Read the passage and summarise it in ONE sentence of no more than 75 words.
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Model answer: Because different stages of sleep transfer new memories to long-term storage and link them with existing knowledge, adequate sleep is essential for learning, and students who sacrifice it to cram may in fact damage their ability to retain and apply what they study.
Write Essay
Write an essay of about 200-300 words on the topic.
Some governments have introduced taxes on sugary drinks to improve public health. Do you think this is an effective way of tackling obesity? Give reasons for your answer.
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Model answer: Rising rates of obesity place a heavy burden on health services, and taxing sugary drinks is one of the measures that governments have tried. I think such a tax is useful, though it can be only one part of a wider strategy.
There is encouraging evidence that it works. When the United Kingdom announced its levy, many manufacturers reformulated their products to reduce sugar content in order to avoid the charge, so consumers were consuming less sugar without having to change their behaviour. Where prices rose, sales of the most sugary drinks fell. Because the revenue can be used to fund school sports or healthy meals for children, the policy can bring a double benefit.
Critics raise fair objections. Taxes on food and drink fall more heavily on poorer households, who spend a larger share of their income on such items, and people can simply switch to other sugary snacks, so the overall effect on calorie intake may be small. Some also feel that the government should not interfere with personal choices.
However, obesity is influenced by many factors, and no single policy can solve it. For this reason, a sugar tax should be combined with clear food labelling, restrictions on advertising to children, better school meals and easier access to affordable fresh food and safe places to exercise. Within such a package, the tax is a sensible and proven measure.
Reading
Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks
Select the best word for each blank.
Coral reefs are built up slowly as tiny marine animals called polyps a hard skeleton of calcium carbonate around their soft bodies. Over thousands of years, the skeletons of successive generations accumulate, the vast limestone structures that support an extraordinary variety of marine life. Reefs typically grow best in warm, shallow, clear water, since the algae living inside coral tissue sunlight to photosynthesise. Although reefs cover only a tiny fraction of the ocean floor, they roughly a quarter of all known marine species. Rising sea temperatures now threaten many reefs, and scientists warn that without urgent action, some of the oldest reef systems could be damaged within decades.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Read the text and select all the correct answers.
Chocolate begins its life as the bitter, pale seeds found inside the pod of the cacao tree, and the rich, complex flavour associated with finished chocolate develops only after those seeds undergo a carefully managed fermentation process shortly after harvest. During fermentation, the seeds and surrounding pulp are typically piled together and covered for several days, during which naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria break down sugars in the pulp, generating heat and a range of chemical compounds that penetrate into the seeds themselves and begin transforming their flavour. Farmers must monitor fermentation carefully, since seeds that ferment for too short a period often retain an overly bitter, astringent taste, while seeds left to ferment for too long can develop unwanted off-flavours that are difficult to correct in later processing. After fermentation, the seeds are dried, roasted and ground, with roasting temperature and duration further shaping the final flavour profile in ways that specialist chocolate makers adjust carefully depending on the character they want the finished chocolate to have. Because fermentation conditions vary considerably between farms and regions, cacao from different growing areas can produce chocolate with noticeably distinct flavour characteristics even when processed using broadly similar roasting methods.
1. Which THREE 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.
Start-up companies seeking substantial funding to grow rapidly often raise money in a series of distinct stages, each involving investors willing to accept significant risk in exchange for a share of ownership and the potential for outsized future returns. In the earliest stage, funding typically comes from the founders themselves, family, friends or small specialised investors willing to an idea that has not yet been proven in the market. As a company demonstrates early signs of success, it can generally attract larger investments from venture capital firms that specialise in the potential of young, unproven companies across a wide range of industries. Because most start-ups ultimately fail to generate significant returns, venture capital firms typically invest across a broad portfolio of many companies, expecting that a small number of successes will the losses from the majority that do not succeed. Founders who accept venture funding must also generally accept that investors will expect a meaningful degree of influence over major company decisions, a trade-off that can sometimes create tension between an investor's priorities and a founder's original for the company.
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Read the text and choose the best answer.
Many companies have traditionally relied heavily on a single supplier or a narrow, concentrated geographic region for critical components or raw materials, an arrangement that can often reduce costs through larger, more efficient bulk purchasing and closer, more consistent working relationships with a single trusted supplier. Recent significant global disruptions, however, including natural disasters, unexpected trade disputes and major public health emergencies, have repeatedly exposed the genuine vulnerability inherent in this kind of concentrated dependence, since a single disruption at one critical supplier or within one specific region can rapidly halt production across an entire company's global operations. In response, many companies have since begun actively diversifying their supply chains, deliberately working with multiple suppliers located across several different geographic regions specifically to reduce the risk that any single localised disruption could bring their entire production process to a complete halt. This diversification strategy typically increases certain ongoing operating costs, since maintaining relationships with multiple suppliers is generally less efficient than concentrating all purchasing with a single dominant supplier, but many companies have concluded that the additional resulting resilience is genuinely worth this added cost, particularly for components considered truly critical to their core, ongoing business operations.
3. What is the main idea of the passage?
Listening
Summarize Spoken Text
Listen to the recording, then write a summary.
Transcript (available after checking)
Since the first satellite was launched in nineteen fifty-seven, humans have left a lot of rubbish in orbit. There are now millions of pieces of debris, from dead satellites and spent rocket stages to tiny flecks of paint. Most people picture space as empty, but objects in low Earth orbit travel at around twenty-eight thousand kilometres an hour, so even a paint fleck can damage a spacecraft. The greatest concern is a chain reaction called the Kessler syndrome. If two large objects collide, they produce thousands of fragments, which could hit other satellites, producing even more fragments. Over time, certain orbits might become unusable. Agencies now require new satellites to be removed from orbit within a few years after their missions, and several companies are testing ways to capture defunct satellites. But without international cooperation, the problem is likely to grow as more satellites are launched.
Write a summary of the lecture in 50–70 words.
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Model answer: Millions of pieces of debris orbit the Earth at extreme speeds, so even tiny fragments can damage spacecraft, and collisions could trigger a chain reaction, the Kessler syndrome, that makes some orbits unusable. New satellites must be removed after missions and companies are testing capture methods, but international cooperation is still needed as launches increase.
Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
Listen and select all the correct answers.
Transcript (available after checking)
In nineteen seventy-seven, scientists exploring the deep ocean floor near the Galápagos Islands discovered hydrothermal vents, cracks where mineral-rich water heated by magma pours out at extreme temperatures. What surprised researchers most was the life clustered around them: dense communities of clams, crabs and strange tube worms thriving in complete darkness, thousands of metres below any sunlight. Since photosynthesis is impossible there, the entire food web depends instead on bacteria that convert chemicals from the vent water, particularly hydrogen sulphide, into energy, a process called chemosynthesis. This discovery reshaped biology's understanding of where life can exist, and it strengthened the case for a chemical, rather than purely solar, origin of life on early Earth. It has also influenced the search for life elsewhere, since moons such as Europa may harbour similar vents beneath their icy oceans.
1. Which THREE statements are true according to the lecture?
Fill in the Blanks
Listen to the recording and type the missing words.
Umbrellas appear in art from ancient Egypt, Greece and China thousands of years ago, though for most of that history they provided from the sun rather than protection from rain, and were often reserved for royalty as a symbol of . Waterproofing eventually made rain umbrellas practical, and by the eighteenth century they were common across Europe, though men who carried one were initially for copying a feminine accessory. A well-known English writer is often credited with popularising the rain umbrella among men despite years of , gradually normalising what had seemed an odd .
Highlight Correct Summary
Listen and choose the paragraph that best summarises the recording.
Transcript (available after checking)
Vast areas of the Arctic sit on permafrost, ground that has remained frozen for thousands of years, and it's now thawing as the region warms roughly four times faster than the global average. This matters far beyond the Arctic itself, because permafrost contains huge amounts of ancient organic matter that has been locked in a frozen, essentially preserved state; once it thaws, microbes begin decomposing it and release carbon dioxide and methane, both greenhouse gases that could accelerate warming further, a feedback loop scientists watch closely. Thawing ground also becomes unstable, damaging roads, pipelines and buildings built on what was once solid, frozen soil, forcing some communities to relocate entire structures onto new foundations.
2. Which paragraph best summarises the recording?
Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answer
Listen and choose the best answer.
Transcript (available after checking)
The bent wire paperclip shape familiar today, often called the Gem clip, wasn't patented by any single named inventor, unlike the popular story often told; it developed gradually among manufacturers in the eighteen nineties without a clear patent describing that exact shape. A Norwegian inventor is frequently, and incorrectly, credited with inventing the paperclip, largely because of a patent he filed for a similar but different wire design, and a statue was even built in Norway honouring him based on this shaky claim. The double-loop design turned out remarkably effective at holding paper without damage, which is likely why it has barely changed in over a century.
3. What does the speaker suggest about the popular story of the paperclip's invention?
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. The familiar three-arrow recycling symbol was originally designed in nineteen seventy by a college student entering a competition. Each arrow simply represents one step in the cycle: collecting, reprocessing material, and manufacturing it into something entirely new. The design was deliberately left unregistered so that any company could use it for free, which quickly helped it spread globally within a few years.
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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