Answer Short Questions tasks of PTE Speaking & Writing section assess a test taker’s listening and speaking skills as well as the ability to be precise. In Answer Short Questions tasks, an audio recording, up to 9 seconds long, plays the question and you have 10 seconds to answer, using as few words as possible.
If you don’t speak for 3 or more seconds, the current status shows “completed” and your voice does not record after that.
As soon as the audio finishes, the “current status” will change to “recording”. There is no beep and you must start speaking immediately.
Kindly note that if you pause for more than 3 seconds, the status changes to “completed” and the test taker’s voice will not record after that. Limit your pauses to 1, or at the most 2 seconds.
Although it states clearly in the description of PTE Answer Short Questions task that a one-word answer (or a few words, depending on the question) is sufficient, many candidates, under the false impression that it might fetch them better scores, still insist on being verbose. 
For example, you get the question, “What are the two holes in your nose called?”
Instead of saying “They are called nostrils”, you could simply respond with one word: “Nostrils”.
Both responses are correct and will fetch you the same score in PTE Academic, however, with the former, you ended up using more words than required and probably wasted a couple of seconds in doing so.
Look at the samples of Answer Short Questions down below to get a clearer picture:
Sample 1
Who takes care of the sheep?
Ans: Shepherd
Sample 2
What is the person who belongs to an organization called?
Ans: Member
Sample 3
The process of conducting examination of a dead body is called?
Ans: Post-mortem
For more sample questions and full-length mock tests, please visit PTENOTE.
