u/Zealousideal_Post435

Hey guys! Just took my PTE earlier today and got my results within a few hours. Just thought I'd come on this subreddit and share more information about what I did and resources that might be helpful for others to prepare and hopefully calm some nerves.

Firstly, I think it's important that to share my background and relevant context. Two people will need different amounts of preparation if their background is different. My background:

• Age: 22
• Nationality: Indian
• Experience with English language: grew up speaking English and Hindi at home, went to British and American schools, and did my bachelors from UBC in Canada. Growing up I didn't read a lot but in the past year I've read about 12 books in English. I'd say I'm more comfortable communicating in English vs Hindi.

My preparation:

• Total hours spent (yes I'm kinda weird and kept track): 6 hours
• Money spent: 0$ (more on this later)
• What I did:
  • 30 mins: searched "PTE core" on youtube and gathered good resources for me to use (sharing what I actually used below)
  • 3 hours: took some notes while watching a 2 hour crash course on PTE core on youtube for free. He breaks down the structure of the exam and some strategies on how to prepare which was helpful to know what to expect. He also shares some templates and tricks which seemed gimmicky and I skipped past those sections. The biggest takeaway from that crash course was: make sure to include key words from the image / prompt / paragraph in your response. Not a promotion but here is the link.
  • 2 hours: found a playlist that goes over some practice questions for free. This was particularly helpful as it was my first time doing practice and made me realize questions like answering a short question in speaking can be tricky. The added bonus was that some similar questions did come in the exam. Not a promotion again but here is the link. I would practice along where possible while watching and spent more time on videos where I felt I needed more practice. On average I'd say I watched 15 minutes of each video (some on 1.75x speed)
  • 30 mins: on the day of the exam I spent some time reviewing specific sections of that crash course I watched to refresh what the grading criteria is and how best to meet it.
• What I would have done differently:
  • On the day of the exam, I came across the resources available on my PTE. They have a package available for around $30 CAD with access for one week (higher cost if you want access for longer periods). It includes 15 mock tests and over 1000 individual questions practice. Given I had spent $550 CAD for the PTE core, I felt stupid not coming on the resources page earlier and doing a few hours of practice on here. I did do the free AI practice and it was helpful to see how scoring is done (I thought I bombed some questions in the practice but my score was higher than expected which calmed my nerves). The one I'm referring to is called "Official PTE Academic AI Practice".
    • Knowing what I know now, I would still watch that 2 hour crash course and then would pay the 30 bucks and spend a few hours doing practice on there.

The actual test itself:

• I got super lucky as there was only 1 other person taking the test in the same slot as me, while the testing room could accommodate about 20 people. The examiner put us on opposite ends of the room so there was essentially no background noise.
• With some question types, like describe image and respond to a situation in speaking, and summarize spoken text, MCQs and highlight incorrect words in listening, there is very limited time to prepare. As I hadn't done a mock before, I did not know what to expect, and felt rushed to respond quickly with limited time to review the question. This is where doing some practice on the official PTE resources would have helped. For instance, in one describe image my response did get cut off as I wasn't keeping track on how much time I had left to respond.

Hope that is helpful to folks preparing for the PTE core. Best of luck to everyone! Happy to answer more questions in the comments.