My IELTS vs PTE experience
By: Greg Ortega
Tags: Visa, Language Learning, Ielts, English, Immigration

Dear IELTS, you can go F… yourself, no seriously, what is up with that system?

I would like to share my experience about taking multiple IELTS exams trying to get that damn 7.0 in every band, then finally deciding to try my luck (ahem, my english skills) at a different exam. Hopefully I will manage to convince others to take the PTE-Academic instead of the IELTS. If you do not want to read any of the details and want to get to the end of this, just skip to the results part.

For those that do not know what any of these exams are, they are standardised english exams that measure your ability to speak english. These exams are usually required by universities or governments for visa applications if you come from a non-english speaking background. There are multiple exams and they all have a different format, but I will only talk about the PTE and the IELTS. The results from these exams are valid for 2 or 3 years, and so, as an immigrant you might have to take them more than once depending on your visa situation. As one of my friends says, it is as if you suddenly forget how to speak english, and you go, SORRY!, my results expired I do not know how to ENGLISH anymore!, byeee!

IETLS Vs PTE

In short, the main difference between IELTS and PTE is that IELTS is a paper based exam, where you read and write your answers in paper, and the PTE is all computer based. In the case of IELTS the speaking part takes the form of an interview, and in the PTE you simply speak to the computer. ITELS has a maximum score of 9.0 and PTE has a maximum score of 90. I find the PTE Academic as a more difficult exam than the IELTS, because of the complex content and vocabulary used in the questions, as the listening and reading passages can be based on academic readings, making it difficult for someone that doesn't have a good grasp of the language. Also, the speaking part contains a graphs and charts section where you have 25 seconds to study the image and 40 seconds to explain it, I found that pretty daunting at the beginning , but I got used to it with practice.

My background

I am from Venezuela and my first language is Spanish. I started learning english when I was 12 or 13, and when I was 15 I had a really good handle on the language and was pretty fluent by then. In 2007 I took the TOEFL since it was required by universities in Australia, and I did pretty well, at least good enough to get into university. So in 2008, at 18 I moved to Australia. Then in 2013 I took the IELTS because I was planning to extend my visa, but after doing a whole university course, I was confident in my ability to speak english and I only reviewed the exam format the day before. Again, I had no issue in obtaining the result I needed, getting 7.0 or above in every band.

In January 2016 my previous results were no longer valid, so I had to take the IELTS again, to be able to obtain enough points for a permanent residency visa application. This is where things got tricky. This time I was also confident that I would do well in the exam, so I studied the format of the exam and practiced questions for about 2 days. Two weeks later I get the results and was shocked that I had obtained a 6.5 in my writing band. This was bad, but not terrible since I had an 8.5 in the rest of the bands, and an average of 8.0. From the results, I simply thought I did not have enough words on my essay for the writing section.

During this time I was incredibly busy between work and making a video editing application as a side project. This app was taking most of my time outside of work, I was not seeing friends or doing anything outside of work. I still managed to get to the gym, but I was hooked on getting the app finished. I decided to take the IELTS again as soon as possible, so that I could get back to work in the app. Yet again, another failure in my ability to speak english, this was pretty devastating and stressful. Knowing that my stay in this country depended on an english exam that I had passed before but for some reason I had to take again, yes, that had a negative effect on me.

After the second exam in 2016 I decided to take a brake from the exams and concentrate on finishing my app, but I knew I still had to take the exam again some at other time. In a couple of months I finished the app , not to the quality I expected but I was running out of time for sitting another exam and applying for another visa, so it had to be finished. Shortly after this, I did a course to improve my writing skills, and I improved to the point I was getting 7.5 or 8.0 in most of my essays. The problem I had in my writing was that I kept forgetting to write some words inside a sentence, when I thought I did. This was an easy mistake to spot after paying close attention to my writing.

After the course I took another exam, and again got a score that was less than 7.0 in my writing. Another $330 spent and 2 weeks of waiting time for the results. So I decided to give PTE a try.

Results

TOEFL IBT

L: 23, R: 27, W:20, S: 23 -> 2007 October

IELTS General Training:

L: 8.0, R: 7.5, W: 7.0, S: 7.5 ->2013 Jan

L: 8.5, R: 8.5, W: 6.5, S: 8.5 ->2016 Jan

L: 8.0, R: 7.0, W: 6.0, S:7.0 ->2016 Feb

L: 7.5, R: 7.5, W: 6.5, S:7.5 ->2016 May

PTE-Academic

L: 86, R: 90, W: 88, S: 81 -> 2016 Jun

Let’s just say I was pretty happy with the results from PTE. Not only did I get a good result, but it was more than what I was hoping to obtain in IELTS. A 65 in PTE is equivalent to a 7.0 in IELTS, and 79 is equivalent to 8.0. And because more points are awarded for a higher level of english in your visa, now I have a higher priority.

Online Mock exams

This is the best way to know on what level you are, and how ready you are for the PTE, taking an online mock exam. After studying the format of the exam, I did two online mock exams, at first I got 75 average, then 84 average. Then I took another one, but it seems that they have only two models, so I basically repeated one of them, but it was still a good practice and money well spent. Instead of spending $300+ on one exam spend about $60 or less and get a feel for the exam. Results are usually out on the same day.

Looking back at IELTS now, the thing that was probably bringing my score down was my spelling, since the additional scores from PTE, spelling was my lowest with 45. But, my written discourse, vocabulary and grammar were 90. Also, I found it easier and faster to type in a computer than writing in paper, I am not used to writing in paper at all.

One of the things I did not like from the PTE, is the fact that during the speaking section you hear all the other candidates speaking, and it gets very noisy. In my room there were about 10 candidates plus the invigilator, which made it hard to concentrate on some of the graphs.

Conspiracy theories

There are some things that I will probably never know about IELTS, such as the fact that when booking an exam you have to specify the reason for taking it. Is the exam for immigration purposes? for university? for work? whatever, I should have clicked the other option and add “For fun, I am just doing it for fun”. I hope that this is mainly for analysis and not for lowering your results depending on what you choose.

Why is there no feedback provided if you choose to have the exam remarked? It costs $200 and it takes about 8 weeks and you simply get another result or the same one (no feedback whatsoever), oh wait, maybe is just better to take another exam, right?. Well that’s what most people say, now I think I should have gone for the PTE sooner.

Maybe someone is trying to slow down immigration.

Maybe the test centre where I was doing my exams is just greedy and wants all my money. This is probably everyone’s favourite. I have heard stories from people taking IELTS more than 7 times, that sounds like an expensive nightmare!.

Summary

If you are in a similar situation or are about to take the IELTS and you don’t get the results you need in IELTS the first time, try taking the PTE. This whole experience made me hate the IELTS, and I would hate to see other people go through the same thing, it is stressful, time consuming and expensive. One of the things that convinced me to take PTE was that I was running out of time, some friends told me about PTE , and I read this post from a guy in South Africa with a similar experience. Link here

IELTS is not impossible, I am sure that many people can get 7.0 and 8.0 in all bands, but it is also common to get stuck taking the exam many times trying to get a specific score. This is my way to help others see that there are other alternatives to taking the IELTS, and to close this chapter in my english journey.

Update

A much needed update on this topic, the link to do sample questions and exam is this https://ptepractice.com/ . I don’t know how I forgot to add it before. Apologies.

After speaking to an English teacher at the course where I went to improve my writing, he said I was a bit lucky. In what sense? Well, he said that he has seen this pattern many times before, where students take the IELTS multiple times without improving on anything, then they try the PTE academic and fail on the speaking section. This is because the format is completely different to that of IELTS, and to add to this, he said that the accent your accent plays a big role in the marking. This might be obvious given that the whole test is marked by a computer, but it is an easy thing to forget, and many students might be disadvantaged depending on their accent. However, I still think that if you have a good level of english and can’t get past the writing part in the IELTS, try the PTE instead, all the best and best of luck!.