Ten sentences, heard once, repeated exactly. Scored on what you reproduce, not on whether you understood it.
“You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it. You will hear the sentence only once.”
Comprehension is not scored here. Hold the sound and give it back. People who repeat sentences about unfamiliar subjects fluently outscore people who parse them first.
Say the opening, say whatever you kept, say the ending. Every correct word is worth marks and the recording is not graded pass/fail.
Say the sentence and stop. Trailing filler after a correct repetition adds nothing to content and can hurt fluency.
Nothing about this task rewards deep focus on meaning. Listen the way you would listen to a phone number you are about to dial — for shape and sequence, not sense.
Working memory for an unfamiliar sentence tops out at roughly seven units, and a nine-second sentence is well past that if you store it word by word. Practise storing it in three or four chunks instead.
Six texts of up to 60 words, read aloud from the screen. The easiest task to sound fine on and still score badly.
A chart, map, graph or process diagram, described from scratch. The task where a rehearsed structure genuinely helps.
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.
Ten per sitting. Together with Answer Short Question they make up the bulk of the Speaking items by count, even though each one lasts only seconds.
No. Repeat Sentence credits the words you reproduce in the right order, not your comprehension. Candidates who repeat sentences on unfamiliar subjects fluently score above those who stop to work out the meaning first.
Say the part you caught. Partial credit is real, so an incomplete attempt always beats silence — give the opening, whatever you retained, and the ending.
No. It plays a single time with no transcript and no replay, and recording begins the moment the audio ends. There is no preparation time at all, which is why immediate onset matters so much here.
Our PTE mock runs Repeat Sentence on the published timings — No preparation time · 15s to answer · 10 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.