The listening skill test format has many questions and one of them is summarizing the spoken task.

Summarize spoken text assesses listening and writing. The task is to summarize the content of the audio in 50-70 words. At the end of the audio, the test taker has 60-90 seconds to deliver their response. The subskill tested in this section include Identifying the topic, theme or main ideas; summarizing the main idea; identifying supporting points or examples; identifying a speaker’s purpose, style, tone or attitude; understanding academic vocabulary and many more.

Tips on how to answer this section

Listen attentively to the lecture

The audio plays only once and if you miss the content the first time you will not get a second chance. Therefore concentrate until the audio finishes playing. This would mean the test taker has to manage multi-tasking; listening attentively while writing.

Use the provided notepad

On this section, the test taker must use the provided writing material to note keywords and key phrases. These could be dates, names, events and other similar words that will make it easier for the learner to remember the content of the audio.

Type the draft

Type the summary without giving much attention to the word count just so you could have all the important details then edit afterwards. This is the first draft of the summary which will help you to write all the important points while they are still fresh in your mind.

You can buy a PTE voucher for any of the test types, including the PTE Academic, PTE General, and PTE Young Learners tests.

Re-read your response

It is important to go back and read the summary once you are done. It helps with editing and correcting any errors like grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Also, it is to make sure that you have adhered to the required word limit to avoid losing marks unnecessarily

During preparation use listening media to prepare

Listening to understand requires one to listen attentively and to have high concentration skills. The audios played during the PTE Academics only play once and if the learner doesn’t grasp the content first-hand there is no second chance to re-play the audio. Therefore the learner needs to strive for high concentration skills. This can be achieved by avoiding distractions daily. When doing a task, it is important to devote one’s undivided attention to the task at hand, this will spill over to other areas as well.