PTE Academic Speaking: Every Task, Timing and Scoring Trait in One Place

The speaking part of PTE Academic™ feels fast because it is fast. You move from one short task to the next with no examiner, no small talk, and a microphone that decides when you have finished. Knowing the structure before test day takes much of the stress away.

This is a one-page map of the speaking tasks in the current PTE Academic test (the version in use since 7 August 2025, when Pearson added two new speaking tasks). Every timing and trait below comes from Pearson’s official Speaking & Writing format page and the PTE Academic Test Taker Score Guide.

If you haven’t yet decided between PTE Academic and PTE Core, start with PTE Academic vs PTE Core: Which Test Do You Need?

Where speaking sits in the test

PTE Academic has three parts: Speaking & Writing, Reading, and Listening. Speaking comes first, in Part 1: Speaking & Writing, which Pearson says takes about 76–84 minutes and covers nine question types. Seven are scored speaking tasks, there are two writing tasks, and the section opens with an unscored Personal Introduction.

Your speaking skill score (10–90) is built from the speaking tasks, but some of them are “integrated”: they also count towards another skill. For example, Repeat Sentence counts towards Listening and Speaking.

The tasks at a glance

Task	What you do	Preparation	Answer time	Items per test
Personal Introduction	Introduce yourself (not scored)	25 s	30 s	1
Read Aloud	Read a text of up to 60 words aloud	30–40 s	Varies with text length	6–7
Repeat Sentence	Repeat a 3–9 second sentence exactly	—	15 s	10–12
Describe Image	Describe a graph, chart, map or picture	25 s	40 s	5–6
Retell Lecture	Retell a lecture of up to 90 s in your own words	10 s after the audio	40 s	2–3
Answer Short Question	Answer a question in one or a few words	—	10 s	5–6
Summarize Group Discussion	Summarise a discussion between three people (up to 3 min)	10 s after the audio	2 min	2–3
Respond to a Situation	Say what you would say in an everyday situation	10 s after the audio	40 s	2–3

A few rules apply to almost every task:

• You get one recording. You cannot re-record, and you cannot replay the audio.
  
• Wait for the microphone. The status box counts down, then shows “Recording”. For most tasks you also hear a short tone. Answer Short Question has no tone, so start speaking as soon as “Recording” appears.
  
• Silence ends your turn. Pearson’s test tips say the microphone closes if you are silent for three seconds. Once the status shows “Completed”, you cannot add anything.
  
• Finish before the progress bar runs out. Whatever you say after it ends is not recorded.
  

What each task is scored on

Most speaking tasks are scored on three traits: Content, Pronunciation and Oral Fluency.

Task	Content	Pronunciation	Oral Fluency
Read Aloud	Word errors (replacements, omissions, insertions)	0–5	0–5
Repeat Sentence	0–3 (how much of the sentence, in order)	0–5	0–5
Describe Image	0–6	0–5	0–5
Retell Lecture	0–6	0–5	0–5
Summarize Group Discussion	0–6	0–5	0–5
Respond to a Situation	0–6	0–5	0–5
Answer Short Question	Vocabulary 0 or 1 (correct or incorrect)	—	—

Three details from the Score Guide are worth knowing early:

1. Content comes first. For open tasks such as Describe Image, Pearson scores Content first. If Content is 0, because there was no response, it was off-topic or it relied on memorised material, Pronunciation and Oral Fluency are not scored, and the item earns nothing.
   
2. Humans check some answers. Every question is scored by AI, but for Describe Image, Retell Lecture, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation a human expert also reviews Content before the score is final.
   
3. Answer Short Question is a listening task. In PTE Academic it counts towards Listening only. Speak clearly, but don’t expect it to raise your Speaking score.
   

Pearson does not publish a formula that turns these trait scores into your 10–90 Speaking score. Treat any website that claims a precise weighting with caution.

How the tasks group together

It helps to think of the section as three families of tasks:

1. Reproduce what you see or hear: Read Aloud and Repeat Sentence. Content is mostly about saying the exact words. Pronunciation and fluency carry a lot of weight because the words are given to you.

2. Describe and retell: Describe Image, Retell Lecture and Summarize Group Discussion. You build your own answer from a visual or a recording. Content rewards covering the main points, showing how they relate to each other, and drawing a conclusion, all in your own words.

3. Respond like a real person: Respond to a Situation and Answer Short Question. One asks for a short, precise answer. The other asks you to deal with a situation in a tone that suits it.

Each family needs a different kind of practice, which is why this series has one guide per task.

Pacing the section

The tasks come in a fixed order. Answer Short Question, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation come after Retell Lecture, so your energy has to last. Three habits help:

• Use every second of preparation time. Twenty-five seconds is enough to plan a Describe Image answer if you know what to look for.
  
• Don’t save effort for later tasks. Each item is scored on its own. A rushed Read Aloud does not “buy” time for Describe Image.
  
• Reset after a bad item. You cannot go back, so let it go and focus on the next one.
  

Practise this

Lingo Copilot Speaking runs every PTE Academic speaking task with the official timings: one take, audio played once, and a recording that stops after silence. You get an AI estimate of Content, Pronunciation and Oral Fluency for each answer. You can practise one task type at a time, run a quick mock, or sit a full speaking mock in test order.

Open PTE Academic speaking practice, or create a free account. Your first full PTE speaking mock is free.

Scores in Lingo Copilot Speaking are AI estimates for practice, not official PTE scores. PTE Academic™ is a trademark of Pearson. Lingo Copilot Speaking is not affiliated with or endorsed by Pearson.