PTE Courses

The four key points about PTE Academic

1. Convenience: The first one is convenience. You can book the PTE test up to 24 hours in advance, and the test is available to be set every day of the year. So, 365 days a year, you can take this test: it's also in just one single setting. So, in two hours, the entire PTE exam will be completed; you don't need to come back on a separate day to do the speaking part of the test, you show up, and it's all done in one day. And then the results are fast. The turnaround here is that 85% of these are back within 48 hours on average. So, test-takers will know quickly how they performed in the test.
2. Accurate: It's also very accurate. So, because it's computer-based, this marking ensures completely impartial, accurate marks. As a result, it's the most accurate test of academic English with the smallest standard error of measurement.
3. Relevant and objective: This test is designed to represent academic language demands within a university or a college setting. The source materials are authentic, and they're taken from real-life situations in an academic environment. The integrated tasks in the test are more than just one language skill, which reflects how we speak and use English in everyday life.
4. Enhanced security elements: All the test centres worldwide are subject to the same rigorous security measures and completely digital end-to-end tests that provide you with more confidence as a test taker in the results.

Now, let's have a look at the convenience and the registration cycle or process here. A test taker will need to create an account with Pearson to schedule their test. Then, the test taker can go onto our website MarvelPTE.com and access a vast range of preparatory resources. There is a lot of preparatory material on Pearson's official website, which the test taker can see. And when the scores are ready, they'll be notified by email with their results. And these results will be valid in Pearson's score report for two years. At which point, these scores can be made available to the immigration authority, if it's for visa reasons or the institution or professional body that you've applied to with your results. You'll also notice here, as I mentioned, the score turnaround is fast. The purpose of an assessment is to capture a test taker's true level of ability precisely.

So, PTE Academic is scored against the global scale of English. Now, if you're not familiar with that, this is a granular score scale that goes from 10 to 90. So, the students will receive an overall score on this scale, which gives an accurate assessment of their English ability.

So, if you look to this first ruler here, we've got PTE academic here in the middle, and you'll see the score scale that I mentioned from 10, right through to 90, being the maximum score you can get. Like the IELTS test, TOEFL below also has a scoring system from 40 to 120, where IELTS is on the band system 4.53 to nine. So, you should be able to see here within a single IELTS half band, which can be up to seven PTE academic score points there. So, this level of granularity gives a lot more information. And then below, PTE is also aligned against the European Framework. So as an example, if you get, let's say, 30 in PTE academic, that will put you down at a two-level on the band system there or if you go right up to 8, a very impressive score on the test, that will put you right in the middle of between a C one and C two-level and the CFR.

So given that a computer marks it, it's also objective. Machine scoring means responses are scored both objectively and consistently. So, if you imagine that the system isn't distracted by, let's say, body language, or the appearance of a test taker, for example, which happened during the face-to-face interviews, the way students come from, or their appearance will have no impact on their scores. And regional accents as well will be treated entirely equally by the computer system. All the test centres are very secure. There are many measures to alleviate cheating, namely the range of measures like palm vein scanning, photo, digital signatures, and multiple security camera invigilation.

Crucially, each test taker will get a different version of the test. The tests are randomized. So, while each version of the course has the same level of difficulty, it is a different test so that no copying can happen. Each test is marked centrally by the computer, so it's free of human interference or bias. The results are totally paperless.

Recognition of PTE Academic

PTE academic has quite an impressive spread of recognition globally. Over 1000 institutions within the USA, including Harvard Business School and Yale, recognize the test and the Fulbright scholarships. 90% of universities in Canada, 98% here in the UK, so all UK visas. And then in Europe, 100% of universities and Sweden, Finland and Ireland recognize the test with 88% of universities, Norway, and as a growing number of many other universities across Europe that are recognizing there's also more increase across Malaysia and Singapore. 100% of universities recognize PTE academics in Australia and New Zealand. This also includes all visas and Australia Awards, scholarships, and New Zealand aid scholarships, and it's also accepted by 1000s of institutions and scholarship education bodies. If you want to find out more, visit the PTE website to get the full list.

You can take the test by finding the closest and most convenient location or directly taking the test from your home. So, there are almost 53 centres currently worldwide, and this may have gone up as well. But it's all done via the website; select the location from the drop-down list or centres, they're all subject to the same security measures, and it's just a matter of going to where it's most convenient for you.

Comparison between High stakes tests and PTE Academic

A diverse spread of test-takers takes PTE academic. Firstly, the age range is from 16 to above 60 years of age, with the average age is taking this test at 29. Additionally, this includes 180 different nationalities with 117 different first languages. Indian is the leading nationality now. Finally, test takers come from various backgrounds; they're students, migrants, and professionals.

The use of automated scoring in PTE academics is the future of assessment. So how is the test scored in this way? It's based on very complex algorithms trained by testing a data sample of over 10,000 students with over 120 native languages. So, this process or method gives far more analytical, more objective results than humans do.

At PTE academic, AI is used for one very simple reason: to make the most unbiased English test. AI scoring means that it's not simply a single human assessing your English but a very clever algorithm that mimics how human markers would score based on many, many responses. It all starts with the team of expert test developers, who create tests that reflect real-life scenarios, not just multiple-choice questions, but essay writing, listening tasks, and storytelling exercises. Then 100s-1000s of people from all around the world are asked to answer the questions. Each response is evaluated by experts who rate them on things such as the use of language, content, or pronunciation. These expert ratings become the sample data that the computers understand. What kinds of responses deserve what marks enable the machine using AI to imitate the expert ratings and assign human-like ratings to responses.

Simply put, that means that when you take our test, what you say or write is instantaneously compared with hundreds of previously recorded responses and how they were scored. And because the PTE test is built around state-of-the-art technology, it can be simply delivered and taken anywhere in the world, giving consistent scores every time. So, when you sit down to take the PTE academic test, you're taking advantage of an algorithm that doesn't simply evaluate your skin colour, your gender, or your shoes that that cleverly evaluates your English on its own merits. And I think it's quite crucial to mention that there's no human interference, but you should have noticed that there is an awful lot of human input to train the system to train the marking engines scoring engines.

Test Format

PTE Score report

Image of score report

So just to mention, again, they get one overall score, which you can see here at the top, as well as before communicative skills.

PTE Academic preparation

Whether you are a test taker or a teacher, we recommend three steps to prepare for the test on our website. Now, this is also valid information for a teacher as well. Number one, the first thing you can do again for teachers or test takers is to take our free step-by-step Video Guide, which goes through every item type on the test.

Secondly, get some more specialist help. So, this is completely free; you can access our introduction to PT academic course, this has a lot more detail, takes longer, more focused, but it's guided learning and expert advice to understand the test better. So, again, I would recommend this for test-takers. But if you're a teacher and have an internet connection, you may want to use this in your lessons to enhance the prep.

And finally, number three, for a test taker, doing a full mock simulation of the test where you get a score report within 20 minutes is a great thing to do when you're feeling prepared and getting near to your test date.

So just to mention, again, they get one overall score, which you can see here at the top, as well as before communicative skills.

Why PTE Academic?

In a large-scale student survey, three of the top five reasons for choosing the Pearson test were AI-related. So, here are the reasons for choosing PTE academic over another test.

• 78% said Fast Results,
• Unbiased results because AI
• Able to take the entire test in one session
• Convenient
• Takes less time

So that was a very brief tour of PTE Academic; I hope you found that useful. If you want more help or information in the first instance, do reach out to our PTE expert at MarvelPTE.com or in person to our institute in Zirakpur. The Contact Us page on MarvelPTE.com will be able to filter down any request or query you have. We also give PTE coaching for this PTE course and other PTE courses like PTE General, PTE Academic UKVI, according to proper and latest format according to Pearson. The online courses are also available for the same.

And then, of course, there is a wealth of information online if you want to delve further. This includes more research and concordance documentation and numerous videos explaining exactly how the test works and looks. Lots of information around PTE Preparation is also available on our YouTube channel Marvel.

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