How many speaking questions are in PTE Academic?

Pearson lists seven scored speaking task types: Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence, Describe Image, Re-tell Lecture, Answer Short Question, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation. There is also an unscored Personal Introduction at the start. The count of items per type is not stated on the Pearson page we checked, so this page does not give one.

How long is the PTE speaking section?

Speaking and writing together form Part 1 of PTE Academic. Pearson's current test-format page gives 76 to 84 minutes for that part, which includes the writing tasks. Older guides quote 54 to 67 minutes, so check Pearson's page for the current figure.

How is PTE speaking scored?

Pearson's rules judge content, pronunciation and oral fluency, depending on the task. Read Aloud, for example, affects reading as well as speaking, pronunciation and oral fluency. Your overall score runs from 10 to 90, and Pearson also reports individual communicative skill scores, graded against the Global Scale of English.

What PTE speaking score do I need?

It depends on your target. Australia, the UK, Canada and universities each set their own minimums. Check the requirement for your visa or course. For a comparison, Pearson's July 2025 concordance links a Speaking score of 76 to 82 with IELTS band 7.0, and 66 to 75 with band 6.5. The tables on this page show the IELTS ranges and the Australian speaking minimums.

Is 76 a good score in PTE speaking?

A Speaking score of 76 falls in the IELTS 7.0 band range in Pearson's concordance. Whether that is good for you depends on the requirement you need to meet, so check that first.

How can I get 90 in PTE speaking?

Pearson does not publish a shortcut. The scored rules reward complete content, clear pronunciation and smooth, natural speech. Practise all seven tasks, record your answers, listen back for long pauses and missed words, and repeat the tasks you find hardest until your answers are consistent.

Is PTE speaking difficult?

It is harder for some people than others. Repeat Sentence and Answer Short Question give you no replay and almost no thinking time, so some candidates find them demanding. Regular short practice on each task type helps more than long sessions once a week.

PTE speaking kaise practice karein? (How do I practise PTE speaking?)

Start with the seven task pages linked on this page. Practise each task for 10 to 15 minutes a day, record yourself on a phone, and listen back for clarity and pauses. Read Aloud and Repeat Sentence are the fastest way to improve pronunciation. Spend extra time on the 2025 tasks, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation.

What does open response speaking and writing mean in PTE?

In Part 1 of PTE Academic, Speaking & Writing, you give spoken or typed answers of your own, rather than picking from options. Summarize Written Text and Write Essay are the open-response writing tasks in that part. The speaking tasks above are the open-response speaking tasks.

Are the practice items on this page real PTE questions?

No. Every speaking item on this site was written from scratch to match the length and style of each task. They are not copied from a real test, and they are not predictions of questions you will see.

PTE Speaking Practice

PTE Academic has seven scored speaking tasks. Each one has a fixed preparation time and answer time set by Pearson. This page lists those timings, explains how Pearson scores speaking, and links to a free practice page for every task. All practice items are original and written for this site.

PTE speaking question types and timings

Timings below come from Pearson's test-format page. Start each task on the page linked in the first column to practise it with a timer.

Task	What you hear or see	Preparation	Answer time	What it checks
Read Aloud	Text on screen, up to 60 words	30–40 seconds to read and prepare	Read the text aloud; you can record once	Pronunciation, oral fluency and reading content
Repeat Sentence	Audio of 3–9 seconds, played once	No preparation; the microphone opens after the audio	15 seconds to repeat the sentence	Listening and speaking; you cannot replay the audio
Describe Image	An image or graph on screen	25 seconds to study the image	40 seconds to describe it	Description of visual information, pronunciation and fluency
Re-tell Lecture	Lecture audio, up to 90 seconds	10 seconds to prepare	40 seconds to retell the lecture in your own words	Listening comprehension and spoken summary
Answer Short Question	Spoken question of 3–9 seconds, sometimes with an image	No preparation; no tone before you speak	10 seconds for a word or a few words	Listening and quick, precise answers
Summarize Group Discussion	Discussion between three people, up to 3 minutes	10 seconds to prepare	2 minutes to summarize the discussion	Listening and a spoken summary (added in 2025)
Respond to a Situation	Written and spoken everyday situation, up to 60 words	10 seconds to think, then 10 seconds after the audio	40 seconds to speak	Appropriate spoken response in a real-life situation (added in 2025)

Before the scored tasks, PTE Academic has an unscored Personal Introduction. It gives you 25 seconds to read the prompt and 30 seconds to record, and is only there to help you get used to the test software.

How PTE speaking is scored

Pearson does not publish a points system for each speaking task. The official rules below describe what the scoring looks at. Each rule is a description, not a formula you can calculate with.

Content: whether your answer includes the required information. For Read Aloud, the score counts correct words; added, replaced or missing words lower it.
Pronunciation: whether most regular speakers of English can understand you easily. Pearson recognises regional accents to the degree they are understandable.
Oral fluency: whether your speech sounds smooth and natural. Hesitations, repetitions and false starts lower this score.

Pearson reports an overall score from 10 to 90, plus individual scores for each communicative skill. Read Aloud is an example of one task that feeds more than one skill. Pearson's note on that item says it affects reading, speaking, pronunciation and oral fluency.

How speaking practice is scored here (practice estimate)

After you record an answer on any task page you can press Check my score. The result is a practice estimate and never an official score. Only Pearson issues an official PTE score, and we never turn our percentage into a 10 to 90 score.

Optional transcript:there are two kinds, and both are off unless you choose one. The on-device transcript (recommended) runs a small speech model inside your browser after you stop; it works in most recent browsers, downloads about 41 to 77 MB once from third-party hosts, and your audio is not uploaded. The browser transcript uses the browser's own speech service, so it works in Chrome and Edge only, and the browser sends the audio to that service. The estimate is worked out from the text. This site never receives, uploads or stores your audio.
What is measured:content, from the words you said. Read Aloud counts replaced, missing and extra words, Repeat Sentence uses the content bands in Pearson's score guide, Answer Short Question is right or wrong, and the key-point tasks (Describe Image, Re-tell Lecture, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation) look for a fixed list of key points by keyword. Pace is a rough fluency estimate. The on-device model can quietly tidy up slips, so content estimates can run generous.
What is not measured: pronunciation is never measured. Long pauses (over 1.5 seconds) are measured only with the on-device transcript, which supplies word timings, and keyword matching cannot judge whether a long answer is accurate or well organised.
Without the transcript: on the key-point tasks you tick the key points you covered and get a result labelled self-checked. On Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence and Answer Short Question there is no score, because a content estimate needs the transcript. You play back your recording and compare it yourself.

Your results are saved in this browser only. See them on the practice progress page.

PTE speaking practice questions

Each link below opens a practice page for one task. Start with the one you find hardest, then do the others.

PTE speaking and writing: the open response tasks

Pearson calls Part 1 of PTE Academic “Speaking & Writing”. It has nine scored task types: the seven speaking tasks above and two writing tasks. Summarize Written Text is a one-sentence summary of a passage, and Write Essay is a 200 to 300 word essay. Both are open response tasks, so you write your own answer. Practise them on the PTE writing practice hub.

PTE speaking score to IELTS equivalent

This table uses the speaking column of Pearson's July 2025 concordance study. It shows which PTE Speaking range matches each IELTS band. It is a published comparison, not a conversion you can apply to a single score.

IELTS band	PTE Speaking range
4.5	14–23
5.0	24–38
5.5	39–53
6.0	54–65
6.5	66–75
7.0	76–82
7.5	83–87
8.0	88–89
8.5	90

Source: Pearson PTE Academic and IELTS Academic concordance summary, July 2025. Checked 2026-10-09.

Minimum PTE Speaking score for Australian English levels

The Australian Department of Home Affairs sets a minimum score in each skill for its English levels. These are the Speaking minimums for tests taken on or after 2025-08-07 (new) and before it (old). Overall needs and visa-specific rules are on the PTE score for Australia page.

English level	Speaking (new test)	Speaking (old test)
Vocational English	24	36
Competent English	54	50
Proficient English	76	65
Superior English	88	79

Source: Australian Department of Home Affairs English language level pages. Checked 2026-10-09.

How to practise PTE speaking

Learn the timing of each task before you practise it. The timers on the task pages follow the figures in the table above.
Record every answer on your phone, then listen back. Note any long pause, filler word or unclear sound.
For Read Aloud, mark the punctuation before you start and pause at commas and full stops. Stress the words that carry the meaning.
For Describe Image and Re-tell Lecture, use a simple structure: the main point first, then two or three supporting details.
Pearson lists hesitations, repetitions and false starts as things that lower oral fluency, so keep going after a small slip instead of restarting the sentence.
Repeat the tasks you find hardest, and keep a short weekly log of your recordings to see progress.

Frequently asked questions

How many speaking questions are in PTE Academic?: Pearson lists seven scored speaking task types: Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence, Describe Image, Re-tell Lecture, Answer Short Question, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation. There is also an unscored Personal Introduction at the start. The count of items per type is not stated on the Pearson page we checked, so this page does not give one.
How long is the PTE speaking section?: Speaking and writing together form Part 1 of PTE Academic. Pearson's current test-format page gives 76 to 84 minutes for that part, which includes the writing tasks. Older guides quote 54 to 67 minutes, so check Pearson's page for the current figure.
How is PTE speaking scored?: Pearson's rules judge content, pronunciation and oral fluency, depending on the task. Read Aloud, for example, affects reading as well as speaking, pronunciation and oral fluency. Your overall score runs from 10 to 90, and Pearson also reports individual communicative skill scores, graded against the Global Scale of English.
What PTE speaking score do I need?: It depends on your target. Australia, the UK, Canada and universities each set their own minimums. Check the requirement for your visa or course. For a comparison, Pearson's July 2025 concordance links a Speaking score of 76 to 82 with IELTS band 7.0, and 66 to 75 with band 6.5. The tables on this page show the IELTS ranges and the Australian speaking minimums.
Is 76 a good score in PTE speaking?: A Speaking score of 76 falls in the IELTS 7.0 band range in Pearson's concordance. Whether that is good for you depends on the requirement you need to meet, so check that first.
How can I get 90 in PTE speaking?: Pearson does not publish a shortcut. The scored rules reward complete content, clear pronunciation and smooth, natural speech. Practise all seven tasks, record your answers, listen back for long pauses and missed words, and repeat the tasks you find hardest until your answers are consistent.
Is PTE speaking difficult?: It is harder for some people than others. Repeat Sentence and Answer Short Question give you no replay and almost no thinking time, so some candidates find them demanding. Regular short practice on each task type helps more than long sessions once a week.
PTE speaking kaise practice karein? (How do I practise PTE speaking?): Start with the seven task pages linked on this page. Practise each task for 10 to 15 minutes a day, record yourself on a phone, and listen back for clarity and pauses. Read Aloud and Repeat Sentence are the fastest way to improve pronunciation. Spend extra time on the 2025 tasks, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation.
What does open response speaking and writing mean in PTE?: In Part 1 of PTE Academic, Speaking & Writing, you give spoken or typed answers of your own, rather than picking from options. Summarize Written Text and Write Essay are the open-response writing tasks in that part. The speaking tasks above are the open-response speaking tasks.
Are the practice items on this page real PTE questions?: No. Every speaking item on this site was written from scratch to match the length and style of each task. They are not copied from a real test, and they are not predictions of questions you will see.

PTE is a trademark of Pearson. This is an independent practice site and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Pearson. Practice items are original and are not real exam questions.