How I achieved 90 score in PTE exam
By: Avinash Adluri
Tags: Pte, Language Learning

Avinash Adluri — 90 scorer experience, tips, tricks. Please comment and share with other aspirants if you think this article helped you.

My little background:

I am a web/mobile app developer aiming to settle in Australia (update: I got PR in 2019) . Getting PR was the only option. PTE was the only thing where I can improve points to get PR. I just need ‘Superior English’ (79 or more in each of the sections (Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing)). I started my journey last year in May. I attempted the first two times without much practice. Hence, the score was around 65–70. Later I took it seriously and I got around 75. Below were my results:

1st attempt:

Listening : 73

Reading : 73

Speaking : 81

Writing : 68

2nd attempt:

Listening : 81

Reading : 77

Speaking : 87

Writing : 79

3rd attempt:

Listening : 81

Reading : 78

Speaking : 90

Writing : 82

4th attempt:

Listening : 78

Reading : 83

Speaking : 90

Writing : 83

5th attempt:

Listening : 90

Reading : 90

Speaking : 90

Writing : 90

Score

I didn’t want to end up wasting time and money in reattempting the exam. Instead of attending real exam directly I attempted mock exams to analyse and improve lacking skills. By trial and error, I have found out what works and what doesn’t. Below are the key things I wanted to summarize, which may help others.

Perception

I know that English may not be our own/native language. Even then we need to change our perception that English is tough or impossible to achieve. And we don’t need to be an expert in English to get the desired score in the PTE. I won’t say I am an expert in English, but I can say I achieved desired score with smart thinking. We just need commitment, analysis, hard work to achieve whatever we want. Set a goal for the required score, practice hard, attempt mock test, analyse, be confident and go for the real test.

Analysis

You need to analyse exam pattern and questions format first before starting for the preparation. I don’t know who has created below images (Thanks to them), but they helped me a lot to analyse main scores and enable scores along with the priority questions:

Above one says that top score gaining sections are Repeat sentence, write from dictation, RWFIB. These sections have highest score allocation. It means that if you are not giving 100% to these questions and if you are not confident to these questions — do not expect 79 in the exam.

Prepare for these 4 sections first then only go to others. I will provide tips to prepare for these in below sections

Score distribution among enabling skills

Understand first that which section is affecting which enable score. Your enable score talks about your strength and weakness, understand that first.

Try to get 90/90 in each enabling score, which will lead your main score to 90 automatically.

Practice

I have practised all top 5 sections in ptetutorials, ptestudy, realpte, other websites, youtube(careercoves, E2E, v2 PTE, PTE academic, Roman PTE, Nikhil PTE, etc.

I practised all the prediction files provided by ptetutorials, ptestudy, some other Chinese websites.

Trust me, I practised around 1500 questions for WFD & RS, around 500 for RWFIB, 250 for RO, 800 for ASQ, 200 for RA.

Practice like hell. Take 50 WFD & RS, practice 1 for each minute and do this for at least half an hour continuously. Take 25 RWFIB per day. No excuses.

I recommend 5 weeks to practice before the real exam. 1 mock exam after 2 weeks and other mock after 2 weeks, the real exam after a week. Analysis after each mock is very important.

Join telegram, whatsapp groups for regular updates, exam memories, repeated material.

Tips

Templates may take you to near 78 but you need to add your own knowledge to enhance it.

Never use backspace button in exam, which will affect your spelling score.

Time management is the key for success. In real exam, start your attempt a bit late so that you will not have much distraction.

Presence of the mind so important, take multiple breaths to focus more, before starting any section.

Understand the score pattern, when beep sound enables, when to click next button, etc.

Speaking

I tried to maintain the pace of my tone. Never give gaps in sentences. Don’t speak too fast.

But make sure you give appropriate pause at full stops and commas.

I use MacBook, there is Siri text to speech. I opened prediction files and material pdf files and enabled Siri to speak the text. I observed different tones, intonations, stress on a few verbs, nouns then tried to mimic them in the mock text, which worked well. I suggest you use text to speech apps. Voice pitch analyser may work but I prefer the above method to analyse the stress and intonations.

Reading

Again, practice is the key. For Reading blanks, you should practice at least 30 a day.

Try to note down meaning of new words.

Try to guess meanings.

Try to understand collocations.

Writing

Grammar, grammar, grammar. Brush up basic grammar.

Few templates can help you but you should have capability to write your own sentence with appropriate keywords.

Listening