PTE Listening is the final section of the test and will take approximately 45-60 minutes, depending on the combination of tasks you may be presented with. You will be listening to a short recording in each task, all of which will relate to academic subjects such as humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.
Don’t worry, you won’t need to be particularly knowledgeable about these subjects, as all of the information needed to answer the questions can be found in the recordings.
An important thing to know about your PTE Listening score is that some of the speaking section questions contribute to your listening score. Also, some questions in the listening section affect your reading and writing scores.
There are a total of 8 tasks in the PTE Listening section.
Summarize Spoken Text
In the “Summarize spoken text” task you will see an audio recording box on your screen with a blank text box beneath it.
After 12 seconds, a recording will automatically play and will last for approximately 60-90 seconds. After it finishes, you must write a brief summary of what you heard in the text box provided.
You must write between 50 and 70 words, and include what you think were the most important points made by the speaker in the recording. You can view some examples of Summarize Written Text and practice them in this section.
Multiple choice, choose multiple answers
In the “Multiple-choice, multiple answers” task you will see an audio recording box on your screen with a multiple choice question beneath it.
After 7 seconds, a recording will automatically play and will last for approximately 40-90 seconds. Once the recording has finished, you will need to answer the multiple choice question by selecting more than one answer.
Fill in the blanks
In the “Fill in the blanks” task you will see an audio recorder box and a short transcript with some blank text boxes representing missing words.
After 7 seconds, the audio recording will play for between 30 and 60 seconds. The recording will contain the full transcript of the short text, and you must listen for the missing words in the text and type them into each corresponding box.
Highlight correct summary
In the “Highlight correct summary” task, you will see an audio recorder box with a multiple choice question beneath it.
After 10 seconds, a brief audio recording (30-90 seconds) will play. Once the recording has finished, you must select the answer option that best summarizes the “gist” or the overall meaning of the recording
Multiple choice, choose single answer
In the “Multiple-choice, single answer” task you will see an audio recording box on your screen with a multiple choice question beneath it.
After 5 seconds, a recording will automatically play and will last for approximately 30-60 seconds. Once the recording has finished, you will need to answer the multiple choice question by selecting only one answer.
Select missing word
In the “Select missing word” task you will see an audio recording box on your screen with a multiple choice question beneath it.
After 7 seconds, a recording will automatically play and will last for approximately 20-70 seconds. You will not hear the last word (or group of words) in the recording, instead, you will hear a beep. You must decide which of the multiple choice options is most likely to be the final word(s) in the recording
Highlight incorrect words
In the “Highlight incorrect words” task you will see an audio recorder box and a short transcript below.
The transcript is complete, but some of the words in it are incorrect and are not the words used by the speaker in the recording. After 10 seconds, the audio recording will play for between 15 and 50 seconds.
In the recording, the speaker will read the transcript with the appropriate words, and you must listen for words that are different than what is written and highlight them with your mouse cursor.
Write from dictation
In the “Write from dictation” task you will see an audio recording box on your screen with a blank text box beneath it.After 7 seconds, a recording will automatically play, and you will hear a sentence that lasts no more than 5 seconds. After it finishes, you must type the sentence you heard in the text box as accurately as you can. You will receive a point for every correct word in your response.
