A chart, map, graph or process diagram, described from scratch. The task where a rehearsed structure genuinely helps.
“Look at the image below. In 25 seconds, please speak into the microphone and describe in detail what the image is showing.”
Nobody is scoring your analysis. Use the preparation to pick the four things you will name and the order you will name them in.
Keep a frame that survives the switch — what it shows, the axes or regions, the extremes, the overall movement — and let the nouns change. A bar-chart script recited over a map is audibly wrong.
Have a closing move ready that always fits: restate the largest and smallest values and what the whole image is about. Silence at the end is scored; a slightly repetitive ending is not.
Filler introductions eat the allowance and add no content. Name the image type and the subject in one clause, then get to the data.
The image changes; the shape of a scoring answer does not. Four moves, roughly ten seconds each, will fill the 40 seconds without a script that only fits one chart.
Six texts of up to 60 words, read aloud from the screen. The easiest task to sound fine on and still score badly.
Ten sentences, heard once, repeated exactly. Scored on what you reproduce, not on whether you understood it.
A lecture of up to 90 seconds, retold in your own words after ten seconds of preparation. The task that punishes note-taking systems.
A short general-knowledge question, answered in a word or two. The only Speaking task scored on listening comprehension alone.
25 seconds to prepare and 40 seconds to speak, with six of these per sitting. There is no examiner and no rounding-off question — the microphone simply opens and then closes.
Bar charts, line graphs, pie charts, tables, maps and process diagrams, rotating between sittings. A template built only for bar charts will fail you on a map, which is why it is worth having a frame that survives the switch.
Describe it. Content is credited on the features you name — axis labels, units, highest and lowest values, the direction of the trend — not on how insightful your interpretation is.
Have a closing move ready: restate the largest and smallest values and what the image is about overall. Silence is scored against you; mild repetition is not.
Our PTE mock runs Describe Image on the published timings — 25s to prepare · 40s to answer · 6 per sitting — and marks your recording word by word against the prompt. The first session is free.
This guide is written from the PTE Academic test 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.