PTE Speaking: all seven task types, with timings and scoring
PTE Speaking is 35 short items rather than one long conversation, and every one of them is scored by AI. Scored by AI, with a human expert also checking the content of the longer answers. Results usually come back in a day or two, and the scoring rewards clear, evenly paced speech over interesting speech.
Read Aloud
Six texts of up to 60 words, read aloud from the screen. The easiest task to sound fine on and still score badly.
Repeat Sentence
Ten sentences, heard once, repeated exactly. Scored on what you reproduce, not on whether you understood it.
Describe Image
A chart, map, graph or process diagram, described from scratch. The task where a rehearsed structure genuinely helps.
Re-tell Lecture
A lecture of up to 90 seconds, retold in your own words after ten seconds of preparation. The task that punishes note-taking systems.
Answer Short Question
A short general-knowledge question, answered in a word or two. The only Speaking task scored on listening comprehension alone.
Summarize Group Discussion
A discussion between three people, up to three minutes long, summarised in your own words. The task that marks you on how the views connect, not only on what each speaker said.
Respond to a Situation
An everyday situation of up to 60 words, shown on screen and read aloud, then 40 seconds to reply as if the person were in front of you. Scored on whether your reply does what the situation needs.
What changes when a machine is marking
- Nobody is listening for whether you are interesting. Content is credited on the words you actually produce against what the prompt asked for, which is why a plain, complete answer beats a clever, half-finished one.
- Silence is the most expensive thing you can do. On Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence, Describe Image, Re-tell Lecture and Answer Short Question the recording stops after about three seconds of it, and on every task long gaps read as disfluency even when the words either side are perfect.
- Accent is not penalised; intelligibility is. The scoring is calibrated against a broad range of English accents, and the thing that costs marks is a word a general listener could not identify.
- Items overlap skills. Repeat Sentence, Re-tell Lecture and Summarize Group Discussion feed Listening as well as Speaking — so the Speaking section moves a score you may think you are not being tested on.
Common questions
How many Speaking task types are there in PTE Academic?
Seven: Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence, Describe Image, Re-tell Lecture, Answer Short Question, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation. Pearson added the last two in August 2025. They total 35 items in a sitting, so the section is many short recordings rather than one long conversation.
Is PTE Speaking marked by a human?
Partly. Pronunciation and oral fluency are scored by machine. For Describe Image, Re-tell Lecture, Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation, a human expert also reviews the content score before it is final. Results usually still come back within 48 hours.
Does an accent lower your PTE Speaking score?
Accent itself is not penalised — the scoring is calibrated against a broad range of English accents. What costs marks is a word a general English listener could not identify, which is intelligibility rather than accent.
Which PTE Speaking task is worth practising first?
Read Aloud. The text is printed in front of you, so content errors are avoidable, and nearly every point you lose is a fluency or pronunciation habit that carries into the other Speaking tasks.
What happens if you go silent during a PTE Speaking response?
On five of the seven tasks — Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence, Describe Image, Re-tell Lecture and Answer Short Question — the recording stops after about three seconds of silence, so a long pause can end your answer early. On every task, long gaps read as disfluency even when the words on either side are correct.
Sit the whole section
Our PTE mock runs all 7 task types on Pearson's published timings. Read Aloud and Repeat Sentence are marked word by word against the prompt, the open tasks are checked against the points they need to cover, and the report is on the 10–90 scale. Start with a free quick mock: about 20 minutes, the real tasks, with an estimated score. Full mocks come with a pass.
This guide is written from the PTE Academic format published by Pearson, in our own words. For the official wording, see Pearson's Speaking & Writing format page. MockLive AI is an independent practice tool and is not affiliated with Pearson.