PTE Repeat Sentence: a memory test wearing a speaking test's clothes
Ten sentences, heard once, repeated exactly. Scored on what you reproduce, not on whether you understood it.
What the screen says
“You will hear a sentence. Please repeat the sentence exactly as you hear it. You will hear the sentence only once.”
How the task runs
- You hear one sentence, up to about nine seconds long, played a single time. There is no transcript and no replay.
- Recording begins the moment the audio ends. There is no preparation time at all — the gap between hearing and speaking is where most marks are lost.
- You have 15 seconds to respond, which is far more than the sentence needs. The allowance is not an invitation to think.
- Ten of these per sitting, the most of any Speaking task.
What the scoring rewards
- Words reproduced in the right order. Partial credit is real: a sentence you get two-thirds of scores far better than silence, so an incomplete attempt always beats no attempt.
- Immediate onset. Beginning to speak within about a second of the prompt ending protects the fluency trait; a two-second think reads as hesitation.
- The original phrasing rather than a paraphrase. This is the one task where saying it in your own words scores near zero — meaning is not what is being measured.
- Natural sentence rhythm carried over from the recording. Copying the stress pattern you just heard tends to pull the pronunciation trait up with it.
What costs people marks
Trying to understand the sentence before repeating it.
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.
Stopping when you lose the middle.
Say the opening, say whatever you kept, say the ending. Every correct word is worth marks and the recording is not graded pass/fail.
Filling the full 15 seconds.
Say the sentence and stop. Trailing filler after a correct repetition adds nothing to content and can hurt fluency.
Listening with your eyes closed to concentrate.
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.
The chunking drill
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.
- Break on grammar, not on length: subject phrase, verb phrase, then whatever trails after.
- Practise with audio you cannot predict — a podcast paused at random beats a bank you have already heard.
- Repeat aloud immediately, never after a pause. Training yourself to wait is training the exact habit that costs marks.
The other Speaking tasks
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.
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.
Common questions
How many Repeat Sentence questions are there in PTE?
Ten per sitting. That is more than any other Speaking task, even though each one lasts only seconds.
Do you need to understand the sentence to score well?
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.
What if you only catch part of the sentence?
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.
Can you hear the sentence more than once?
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.
Practise this out loud
Our PTE mock runs Repeat Sentence on the published timings — No preparation time · 15s to answer · 10 per sitting — and marks your recording against what the task asks for. 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.