How to score 79+ in PTE Academic in 1 month and in first attempt ?

HOW TO SCORE 79+ IN PTE IN 1 MONTH IN FIRST ATTEMPT

Hi Everyone,


In this blog I will discuss my journey of scoring 79 + in PTE academic (in 1st attempt) with 1 month of preparation time.


I gave my PTE exam on 11th June 2019 and scored 90 overall. My individual scores were :
- Speaking : 90
- Writing : 90
- Reading : 90
- Listening : 86

Here is my official PTE scorecard :

I think I lost 4 points in Listening because of the following reasons :

- Noise in the testing room during the Speaking section. Everyone tries to talk into the microphone, which makes it harder to listen to the audio during “Repeat Sentence” and “Retell Lecture”. Thus look for smaller testing centers with less students.

- Marker pen stopped working while taking notes for “Retell Lecture”. I kept the marker open without the cap, which made it dry. Thus I performed below average on “Retell Lecture” questions. Therefore, always cap your markers when not using them.


Below is my step by step journey for PTE preparation :

1.
Firstly, I decided to buy official PTE guides as study material. I bought below books :
- The Official Guide to PTE Academic (2018 edition)
- PTE Academic Practice Test Plus - Volume 1 (2018 edition)
- Practice Test Plus of Pearson Test of English Academic - Vol. 2 (2018 edition)

I studied these books and got familiarized with exam pattern and questions. But I was struggling in few questions such as “Describe Image”, “Essay”, etc.


2.
Thus, to improvise on the sections I was struggling with, I saw all the videos of Jay from E2Language - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvSdD8_0DAKn-ThHWhAhoAg. These videos helped me a great deal in creating a solid foundation !!


3.
Next, I was prepared and ready to take a mock test. I bought 3 official mock tests from PTE website : https://www.ptepractice.com/.

I took the Mock Test A, but the score was disappointing. I could not score 79 in 2 sections.
- Speaking : 90
- Writing : 73
- Reading : 72
- Listening : 82




Given the score in Mock Test A, I realized that I need to improve in my Writing and Reading sections. But I was confused since I had already practiced lot of Essays and Summarize Written Text. I was not sure how I should improve my Writing further.


4.
Therefore, I started searching online. I came across 2 youtube channels. I can say that these 2 youtube channels are absolute gems !! They teach you how to be smart with their strategies .
- Language Academy : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-yXI8Y7cry-D5uuNGbYbsw
- Study Hub : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGWYBravPgEGsiUPGzJZ7tg

By watching Varun's and Taran’s videos, I realized that I can increase my score by concentrating on important questions. For example, I was spending a lot of time on MCQs in Reading section and less time on Fill in the Blanks. However, Fill in the Blanks carried more marks than MCQs. Similarly, Write from Dictation carries more marks than Essay.

As per the videos, below questions carry lot of marks :
- READ ALLOWED
- REPEAT SENTENCE
- FILL IN THE BLANKS
- FILL IN THE BLANKS - DROP DOWN
- WRITE FROM DICTATION

Thus I practiced above questions with the mentioned strategies to prepare for the 2nd Mock.


5.
Now, I attempted Mock Test B. This time my score fluctuated a bit :
- Speaking : 90
- Writing : 70
- Reading : 74
- Listening : 78




I realized that I needed to practice more. Thus I practiced more than 200 questions each from Repeat Sentence, Fill in the Blanks (in Reading Section) and Write from Dictation respectively.


6.
In the meantime I got connected to a PTE expert named “Nishima”. Her email is "nishima.chugh@gmail.com" and phone number is 9820087646. She shared plethora of tips with me and really helped boost my moral, which was very important for me to gain back my confidence !! If I were not confident, I wouldn't have got my desired score.


7.
Thereafter I gave my 3rd Mock Test C. This time I was able to improve my scores :
- Speaking : 90
- Writing : 76
- Reading : 90
- Listening : 75





Listening section was going down since I wasn't paying much attention to it, thus this time I practiced the Listening section to cover up the gap.


8.
Finally, two days later on June 11th 2019, I gave my PTE Academic exam. Initially I was shocked to hear the noise in the room during the speaking section, but tried my best to concentrate. At the end of the exam I was sure that I fumbled up in the Speaking section due to noise, but was delighted when the scores came out next day.

My final scores were :
- Speaking : 90
- Writing : 90
- Reading : 90
- Listening : 86



This is my journey for scoring 90 in PTE in the first attempt. This score is equal to 9 band in IELTS. I can say that Mock exams had difficult questions but the Real exam had difficult environment in terms of noise and pressure to perform.