Most common questions of PTE Listening – July prediction 2022

Listening is the last section of the PTE academic test. In PTE Listening there are 8 items. But interestingly Repeat sentence and Retell lecture, these 2 items from the speaking section contribute the highest scores in the Listening section. 

Our monthly prediction file provides you with a collection of the most important questions of PTE. Before moving forward, let’s have a quick idea about what is a Prediction File?

Our Prediction file is a collection of real exam questions for the PTE Exam that may appear in future exams also. It is developed on continuous checking of the frequency of any question’s repetition in 40 PTE Centres in 12 countries. We bring a  new prediction file every month and our students get an overall 60% of common questions from this file. 

This June our prediction file has a more than 60% of hit rate for the PTE exam. As the prediction file consists of the most important questions from the most important items, so there are 3 items in the PTE Listening section which contribute higher marks, that are added to the prediction file. Let’s check the most important questions from the PTE Listening section that are predicted to appear in the PTE exam in the month of June.

The items of the Listening section according to their marks contribution are below,

1. Write from Dictation (WFD)

2. Summarize Spoken Text (SST)

3. Fill in the Blanks Listening (LFIB)

4. Highlight Incorrect Words (HIW)

5. Highlight Correct Summary (HCS)

6. Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers (MCQ Multiple)

7. Multiple Choice, Choose Single Answers (MCQ Single)

8. Select Missing Word (SMW)

WFD is a part of the listening section. It is the last task that comes in the PTE exam. In this item time management is automated. Every task has its own allocated time. You need to save at least 5-6 mins at the end. You will get 3-4 questions containing 9-12 words/ up to 15 words per sentence. The sequence of the words is not important here but sequence matters when there is grammar in the sentence.

Scoring system: 

WFD is scored partially. You get 1 mark for 1 correct word correctly spelled. You get 12 marks out of 90 if you do this item correctly.

Importance of WFD:

WFD contributes the highest marks in the Writing session which is 25% and 22% in the Listening section. So, you can’t avoid this item.

Strategy:

In WFD, taking notes in initials is the best method to perform this item. Taking initial refers to listening to the sentence and taking note of the first letter on each word following the sequence. This method is very much helpful in order to deal with sentences with more than 8 words.

• Note-taking in abbreviations or initials. 

• 1st Half vs 2nd Half 

• Checking word by word after typing is a must.

• Numbers are acceptable in the academic format 

• 5-6 mins at the end for WFD must be saved

Important Considerations for WFD:

1. The sequence of the words in the sentence

2. Spelling 

3. Capitalization of words

4. Punctuation

5. Contracting words

6. The tone of the speaking

Top 20 Write from Dictation (WFD) from the July prediction file,

1. Journalists need to work with a range of technologies.
2. The instant availability of information has radically changed people’s lives.
3. Universities across the United Kingdom welcome applications from all new students.
4. We have to reduce the use of plastic materials.
5. Americans have progressively defined the process of plant growth and reproductive development in quantitative terms.
6. Most scientists believe that climate change threatens the lives on earth
7. Although sustainable development is not easy, it is an unavoidable responsibility.
8. Animals raised in captivity behave differently than their wild counterparts.
9. Students will develop confidence in their ability to think critically
10. Certain scientific principles must be learned verbally or by logical deduction
11. Clinical placements in nursing prepare students for professional practice
12. Despite their differences, all forms of life share certain characteristics
13. Economic problems caused a big rise in unemployment.
14. He landed a job in a very prestigious law firm
15. It was hard to anticipate how all the different characters would react
16. We are researching the most significant challenges we are facing in our society today
17. Library reference desks hold a lot of materials on academic history.
18. Medical researchers have focused on different causes of diseases and treatments
19. Most university teaching takes place in lectures and seminars
20. Observers waited nervously and with bated breath for the concert

Summarize Spoken Text (SST) is an item from PTE Listening, It is one of the most difficult tasks among the other PTE tasks. In this task, you will listen to audio and write a summary out of it. You will get 1-2 tasks in the exam. The computer uses an auto-timer for this task. You will get 10 mins to complete per task. The word limit is (50-70). You get 10 marks per task. While listening to the audio, you need to take notes. After taking notes, write the summary in the box. Otherwise, you won’t be able to cope with the time.

Importance of the sentence:

Summarize Spoken text contributes 16 % score in the PTE Writing and 15% score in the Listening section. So, for those who are aiming for 79+ or 65, this item is very important for them.

Scoring System: 

The marking criteria for this item are,

• Content (2): You need to make sure to relate to the topic and main idea. If your content goes off track , you get 0 for the entire task.

• Form (2): Word limit 50-70. Less than 50 or more than 70 words make you lose 1 mark per extra word.

• Grammar (2): Can use more than 1 Tense + Complex + Compound sentence.

• Spelling (2): Lose 1 mark for 1 misspelled word.

• Vocabulary (2): Use academic vocabulary. Keep the word as you heard. Don’t use synonyms.

Strategy to identify the content:

1. Repeated information or keywords

2. The emphasis on keywords ( word stress)

3. Supported by examples

4. Discourse markers: Connectors(Furthermore/Moreover/ However)

Suggested layout for SST:

• The lecture was about…..(topic)

• Moreover, it highlighted the significance of the fact that….

• Furthermore, it emphasized on the importance of…..

• It also denoted that…..

• In conclusion, it mentioned that….

Note-taking strategy:

• Take Broken Sentences 

• Between 10—15

• Create a Road Map 

• Write Simple Sentences

• Watch out for grammatical errors

Special note: 

Make your sentence short and simple. Don’t make it long. The long the sentence, the more mistakes you make for grammar.

Top 10 Summarize Spoken Text from the July prediction file,

1. Children Literature

I want to write a very short introduction to children’s literature because although here in Britain one of the longest and most distinguished traditions of creating books for children, perhaps the longest and most distinguished in the world. We often take them for granted and we don’t pay enough attention to what a remarkable cultural resource they are for adults and kind of cultural work they do for children and the way that they have served writers and illustrators as a cultural space for creativity subversion and opportunities to experiment with new ideas. So what kind of cultural work the children’s books do? Well, at the level of an individual child, this is one of the places where children learn the vocabularies, get vicarious experiences, and see the images of the world that help them think about how the world works and where they fit into it. Because children’s books are first places that children encounter these things, they are often very direct, as a source of information about what a particular period thinks including what it thinks a child is, what a child needs to know, what childhood looks like. Sometimes when we looked at children’s books from the past, that ‘s very important to notice these children who aren’t there, for instance. So that is one of the things that we have in children’s books.

2. Human Rights Act in UK

The Human Rights Act is far-reaching and controversial in the UK’s history of rights, providing the starting point for a wider application of the law to rights. The 1998 Act introduces 15 specific rights and freedoms, which are also called positive and negative rights. The Human Rights Act does not expand on the provisions made by the European Convention but follows a baseline or minimum standards for human rights.

3. Define Theory Literature

To define theory literature, we should understand the causes and effects of literature. We should also ask ourselves several sub-questions, such as the definition of author and reader. Theory literature has a lot in common with other types of literature, but there are still some logical differences. How to define theory literature is the most fascinating thing. Literature can be caused by language, and by social, historic and economic forces.

4. Earthquake and Faults

Faults are breaks in the earth’s crust, constructing a fault plane. An earthquake starts at a particular point on the fault plane, called the focus of the earthquake. The rocks propagate out from the focus, creating the rupture that is in that particular earthquake. The epicenter is a point vertically above the focus on the earth’s surface. So, this is the relationship between the faults and the earthquakes.

5. Wildlife as Food and Income

In my view, it’s impossible not to talk about wildlife, and not think about its role in livelihoods. And I guess part of that is my own view, part of the research that I do in Africa. In most eastern west Africa. I look a role, all the humans rely on wildlife as the source of food, and also the source of income. And we talk about our wildlife, it seems we talk about fish, we are talking about what is probably the single most important source of protein for humans across the globe. And so, billions, or more than a billion people rely on fish as their primary source of animal protein, and most of these people live in poverty. So the management of wild fish resources that sense is incredibly important to livelihoods and health. And also, wildlife tourism is the multiple billion dollars’ industry, and in many places, such as Africa, South America, it can be the number one source of income, it can be the number one source of foreign income for economies.

6. The history of software

The history of software is of course very new. And the whole IT industry is really only 67 years old which is extraordinary and to be so close to the birth of a major new technology, a major new discipline is quite remarkable given where we got to in those 67 years. And the progression has been not so much a progression as a stampede because Moore’s Law, the rapid expansion in the power of computing and the rapid fall of the cost of computing and storage and communications has made it feasible for information technology to move into all sorts of areas of life that were never originally envisaged. What has happened is that there has been as I said a stampede for people to pick the low-hanging fruit. And that is what’s guided the development of software and information technology over the past decades and continues to do so with a number of consequences that we will explore.

7. Lost childhood

Children have been losing childhood both in the past and now. In the 19th century, the reason for losing childhood was that children needed to work at an early age with high risks of staying around the streets. However, the reasons why children are losing childhood vary according to the change of society, such as the changing aspects of gender and commercial advertisements.

8. Climate change predictions

People are questioning how panicked we should be about the reality of global climate change. Although the prediction of the population bomb in 1968 was criticized because some of the predictions didn’t come about, the world cannot afford to take the risk that the climate scientists have wrong predictions, because major precipitation changes are taking place on a global scale.

9. Misunderstanding of Globalization

Globalization is an overused and often misunderstood concept. The starting point for
understanding globalization is that it is a globalization process of industries and markets instead of countries, so it’s helpful to think of globalization as ‘the integration of economic activities across borders.’ Globalization matters because it means the rise of interconnectedness between countries and markets across the world.

10. Singing improves mental health

This lecture is talking about an experiment with 200 people in a singing group. In this experiment, 84% of women, men, and professionals led the singing group weekly. It was found that singing can significantly improve mental health and the quality of life. Singing has been part of community participation and community activities. Also, singing is an approach to improving the health system.

In Listening FIB , you will listen to an audio and you will be given a transcript. In that transcript you will have some blanks that you need to fill up by listening to the audio. You will get 2-3 tasks. Recorded audio will be of 30-60 secs. 

Scoring System:

This item contributes to the Listening and Writing section partially. You get 1 mark for each correctly spelled word and get 0 for misspelled words.

Strategy:

When you are listening to the audio, write down the answer on the note and then write on the blanks. You don’t need to understand the paragraph. To avoid missing the blanks, you need to skim through the paragraph where the blanks are, before the audio starts. You get 30 secs before the audio starts.

Special note: 

As writing is involved, you need to be careful about the capitalization of words.

Top 10 Listening FIB from the July prediction file,

1. Carbon-rich soils

Rebuilding carbon-rich agricultural soils is the only real productive ……….(1)………. solution to taking
excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. She’s ……….(2)………. that scientists and politicians don’t
see the same opportunities she sees. This year Australia will ……….(3)………. just over 600 million tonnes
of carbon. We can sequester 685 million tonnes of carbon by ……….(4)………. soil carbon by half a percent only two percent of the farms. If we increased it on all of the farms, we could sequester the ……….(5)………. world’s emissions of carbon.
Answer:
1. permanent 2. frustrated 3. emit 4. increasing 5. whole

2. Dogs and Hygiene Hypothesis

Dogs aren’t just man’s best friend. Previous studies have shown that kids with dogs are less likely to develop asthma. Now a new study may show how—if results from mice apply to us. The work was presented at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The study tests what’s called the ……….(1)………. hypothesis. The idea is that extreme cleanliness may actually promote disease later on. Researchers collected dust from homes that had a dog. They fed that house dust to mice. They then infected the mice with a ……….(2)………. childhood infection called ……….(3)………. syncytial virus—or RSV.
Answer:
1. hygiene 2. common 3. respiratory

3. Cars in America

There are some 250 million cars in America, 250 million cars in the country with just over 300 million people. And most of those vehicles, of course, are gas ……….(1)……….. This poses a huge challenge given the limited supplies of oil and the growing ……….(2)………. of the global warming crisis. But there is good news, according to our guests today. And that is we have the know-how and the technology to build ……….(3)………., fast automobiles that don’t use gasoline. These vehicles of tomorrow are powered by ……….(4)………., electricity, bio-fuels, and digital technology. And they already exist. So what’s stopping us from putting them on the roads? Our guests today will help answer that.
Answer:
1. powered 2. urgency 3. sleek 4. hydrogen

4. William Shakespeare

For all his fame and celebration, William Shakespeare remains a ……….(1)………. figure with regards to personal history. There are just two primary ……….(2)………. for information on the Bard: his works, and various legal and ……….(3)………. documents that have survived from Elizabethan times. Naturally, there are many ……….(4)………. in this body of information, which tells us little about Shakespeare the man.
Answer:
1. mysterious 2. sources 3. church 4. gaps

5. Integrated Ticketing

Well in 2004 we integrated ticketing in South East Queensland, so we ……….(1)………. a paper ticket that allowed you to travel across all the three ……….(2)………. in South East Queensland, so bus, train and ……….(3)………. and the second stage of integrated ticketing is the introduction of a Smart Card, and the Smart Card will enable people to ……….(4)………. value so to put value on the card, and then to use the card for ……….(5)………. around the system.
Answer:
1. introduced 2. modes 3. ferry 4. store 5. traveling

6. Contract Patterns Generator (CPG)

In animals, a movement is coordinated by a cluster of neurons in the spinal cord called the central ……….(1)………. patterns generator (CPG). This produces signals that drive muscles to contract rhythmically in a way that produces running or walking, depending on the ……….(2)………. of pulses. A simple signal from the brain instructs the CPG to switch between different ……….(3)………. such as going from a standstill to walking.
Answer:
1. contract 2. pattern 3. modes

7. Laurence Stephen Lowry

Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist. Many of his drawings and paintings depict Pendlebury, Lancashire, where he lived and worked for more than 40 years, Salford and its vicinity. Lowry is famous for painting scenes of life in the ……….(1)………. districts of North West England in the mid-20th century. He developed a ……….(2)………. style of painting and is best known for his ……….(3)………. landscapes peopled with human figures, often referred to as “”……….(4)………. men””. He painted mysterious unpopulated landscapes, brooding ……….(5)………. and the unpublished “marionette” works, which were only found after his death.
Answer:
1. industrial 2. distinctive 3. city 4. matchstick 5. portraits

8. South Australia

Now that the story’s been scratched, it is only part of contingency planning. But it was a symptom of the dramatic turn of events in South Australia, and it flushed out other remarks from water ……….(1)………. and people like Tim Flannery, indicating that things were really much worse than had been ……….(2)………., even earlier this year. So is Adelaide, let alone some whole ……….(3)………. of South Australia, in serious bother? Considering that the vast amount of its drinking water comes from the ……….(4)………. Murray, something many of us outside the state may not have quite realized. Is their ……….(5)………. something we have to face up to as a nation?
Answer:
1. academics 2. foreshadowed 3. regions 4. beleaguered 5. predicament

9. Beautiful Buildings

Along the way we have built ……….(1)………. beautiful buildings, two of which have won and another was runnerup in the prestigious United Nations World ……….(2)………. Award: the first time an Australian building has received that international honour. We rely on older ……….(3)………. of Australian architecture that are heavily influenced by the bush. All residents have private verandhas which allow them to ……….(4)………. outdoors and also creates some “defensible space” between their bedrooms and public areas. We use a lot of ……….(5)………. and soft materials to build beautiful landscape gardens.
Answer:
1. unashamedly 2. Habitat 3. concepts 4. socialize 5. natural

10. Sunflowers by Van Gogh

These two paintings, both called “Sunflowers,” are generally accepted as the finest of several ……….(1)………. of the thick-stemmed, nodding blooms that Van Gogh made in 1888 and 1889 during his time in Arles. The first is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London, and the second is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Van Gogh referred to this work as a “……….(2)………. ” of the London painting. But art historians and curators have long been ……….(3)………. to know how different this “repetition” is from the first. Should it be considered a copy, an independent artwork or something in between? An ……….(4)………. research project conducted over the past three years by conservation experts at both the National Gallery and the Van Gogh Museum has concluded that the second painting was “not intended as an exact copy of the ……….(5)………. example,” said Ella Hendriks, a professor of conservation and restoration at the University of Amsterdam, who was the lead researcher on the project.
Answer:
1. depictions 2. repetition 3. curious 4. extensive 5. original

This is one of the minor tasks of the PTE Exam. The contribution from this task is very little. But if you get 0 in this task that will impact your total score. Highlight Incorrect word is an item from the PTE Listening section. You are given a transcript of an audio. In the transcript, there are errors. Your job is to Highlight those errors.

You will get 2-3 tasks. For each task, you get 5-7 marks. You can get 5-6 errors in one sentence.

Scoring system: 

You get 5-7 marks for each question. You get 1 mark for each correct response and get -1 for each incorrect response. The minimum score you get is 0. 

Importance of HIW:

Highlight Incorrect words are not that much significant for the Listening section but it helps to boost marks in the Reading section. This item contributes 4% in the listening and 10% in the reading section.

Strategy:

When the audio starts, start moving the cursor along with the audio. When you hear something wrong, click on that. If you are not sure, skip it. Don’t waste time in thinking.

This is another minor task of the PTE Exam. The contribution from this task is very little. But if you get 0 in this task that will impact your total score.

Highlight correct summary is an item from the PTE Listening section. In this task, you will listen to an audio and they will give you  4 summaries. You need to highlight which summary is the correct one. You will get 1-2 tasks for this item. You get 30 secs break after the audio is finished.

Scoring system: 

You get 1 mark for each question. You get 1 mark for each correct response and get 0 for each incorrect response. 

Importance of HCS:

The importance of Highlight Correct Summary in PTE in very little. It contributes 1% in Reading and 3% score in Listening.

Strategy:

In this item, you need to be careful of 3 types of information that won’t be the answer. These options need to be eliminated.

1. Wrong Information

2. Contained with examples

3. Exaggerated information/ Additional information

In Listening MCQ Multiple, After listening to a recording,  the content or tone of the recording needs to be judged and a multiple-choice question needs to be answered selecting more than one response. The time for response is 40-90 seconds.

Scoring system:

You get 1-2 questions for each of the items. You get 1 mark for each correct response and get -1 for each incorrect response. The minimum score you get is 0. 

Types of questions:

There are different types of questions, you may get,

1. Which is the following is true?

2. Which is the following is supported by the evidence?

3. Which is the following can be concluded

4. Which is the following is the reason?

5. Which is the following represents the writer’s tone/attitude/ feelings

6. Topic-specific questions.

Strategy :

In MCQ’s elimination method is the best solution to get the answer easily. To Eliminate the options, you need to follow the steps below,

• Wrong information

• Information that doesn’t match what is in the question / being asked

• Tweaked facts that appear to be correct answer

• Opposite details

• Additional information

• Partial information 

• Irrelevant information

In Listening MCQ Single, After listening to a recording, a multiple-choice question on the content or tone of the recording needs to be answered by selecting one response. The time for response is 30-90 seconds.

Scoring system:

You get 1-2  questions for each of the items. You get 1 mark for each correct response and get 0 for each incorrect response. 

Type of Question:

1. True or False

2. Not True or not false

3. True except or false expect

4. Can be inferred or can’t be inferred.

5. Can be agreed or can’t be agreed.

In MCQ’s elimination method is the best solution to get the answer easily.

To Eliminate the options, you need to follow the steps below,

• Wrong information

• Information that doesn’t match what is in the question / being asked

• Tweaked facts that appear to be the correct answer

• Opposite details

• Additional information

• Partial information 

• Irrelevant information

This is the easiest item of PTE. Here you listen to the audio and at the end of the audio one word will be hidden with a beep. Your job is to find that missing word. Sometimes it can be a phrase as well. You get 1-2 tasks for it in the exam.

Scoring :

Select Missing Words contributes only in Listening and the contribution is very small. So, this item doesn’t add much significance to the PTE Exam. But it does contribute to the overall listening score.

Strategy:

As you listen to the audio, the beep is always at the end of the audio. If all the options seem going with the audio, you need to understand the audio. You get a maximum of 5 secs to answer after the audio stops. if you don’t know the answer, just guess one option and move on.

Click on the link to get the full PTE score matrix: https://blog.apical.io/pte-scoring-matrix/

Click to know more: https://www.pearsonpte.com/pte-academic/listening