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IELTS v.s Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) | My personal findings


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Guest Tolu Dee

Hey Family , writing my PTE on tuesday, I hope I blast as well, 1st IELTS L 9, R 8 W 7.5 S 6.5 2nd IELTS L 9 R 8 W 7 S 7, currently have 55 points want to boost my points to 65 so i can apply for 189 visa. I really hope to do well on the PTE, thanks for everyone who has posted so far.

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One of the big factors which lead me to choosing the PTE-A was that i found the IELTS questions contain an extra option for a lot of their questions “None of the above”. After reading through the forums and looking at some practice IELTS content it made me sceptical of taking the test, as it means that none of the given options are necessarily correct (At least with PTE I knew that the answer is definitively one of the options given).

 

Not really. With IELTS (as with PTE-A) one of the given options is always the correct one, it's just that sometime the correct given option is "none of the above". That of itself shouldn't make the test any harder. What does seem to be the case (based purely on the anecdotal evidence seen on PIO) is that the marking is more lenient such that you can get the highest grade without answering every question correctly.

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Guys, is 79 achievable in PTE? Has anyone succeeded to get it?

I have got L71, R70, W65, S88 in my first exam without preparation and I need to get 79 in each. Do you think I will be able to get it this time after study and good preparation?

 

Hi, I got 90 in each and 90 overall, so it's definitely possible. I bought the gold preparation kit and the book

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Have you been getting 90 in the gold kit exams? :D

 

I got 83 and 81 for the writing practice tests, but my microphone didn't work at all so I couldn't really get a meaningful score for the other categories. (I only bought the gold kit the day before the test, so I didn't really make the most of it!) I'd had the book for a couple of weeks, it had useful content, but not enough test examples. The gold kit has a lot more examples and I wished I'd bought it sooner, but in the end it didn't matter.

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Many thanks, Newbie65.

 

I need to score 79 (PTE-A). Would the guide suffice for me to get my required score ??

 

Time is essential for me as I need to submit EOI with the required score 79 (PTE-A) by end Apr 2016. Else, I'll not have suffice point for visa application. All my efforts and dreams for emigrate to Australia will vanish. :frown:

 

 

Please help to advise

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@Anxious see my post just above ^

 

As I said I 'd reccommend buying the gold online test resources so you get 2 full 'exam timed' papers. Worth every penny.

Also reccommend the other pearsons book that I managed to get a .torrent of - (it has 4past exams in there).

 

All depends how you learn best, personally revising past papers and taking the practice exams worked for me - I needed 79 also. Good luck!!

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Many thanks, Newbie65.

 

I need to score 79 (PTE-A). Would the guide suffice for me to get my required score ??

 

Time is essential for me as I need to submit EOI with the required score 79 (PTE-A) by end Apr 2016. Else, I'll not have suffice point for visa application. All my efforts and dreams for emigrate to Australia will vanish. :frown:

 

 

Please help to advise

 

I got mine on eBay and was going to sell it on eBay again. I paid £17 new. Where are you based? I agree practice questions are vital. Why the hurry for April?

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Guest Tolu Dee

I DID MINE today.... was good a little stutter on describe images, but apart from that I feel i did well, the waiting the game

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Guest IamAlex

I took ielts several times and the best were with the lowest band 7 in Academic which I needed for CPA registration and lowest 7.5 in General ... I am not a native speaker...

I did 2 tests from pte academic "gold kit" and found them much more difficult than ielts... The worst is reading and I scored 55 points after 9 in ielts general reading...

As we know there are all the basis to suggest that ielts is a dirty business profiting on sucking our blood and ruining our lives and why other test owners should be less cinic ?

I do not share all the fascination about pte , it may be some sort of promotion or easy for native speakers ...

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I do not share all the fascination about pte , it may be some sort of promotion or easy for native speakers ...

 

Poms are native speakers but they aren't getting the scores in IELTS they think they're entitled to.

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I took ielts several times and the best were with the lowest band 7 in Academic which I needed for CPA registration and lowest 7.5 in General ... I am not a native speaker...

I did 2 tests from pte academic "gold kit" and found them much more difficult than ielts... The worst is reading and I scored 55 points after 9 in ielts general reading...

As we know there are all the basis to suggest that ielts is a dirty business profiting on sucking our blood and ruining our lives and why other test owners should be less cinic ?

I do not share all the fascination about pte , it may be some sort of promotion or easy for native speakers ...

 

I do not for one minute believe PTE is some sort of promotion or easy for native speakers. Easier perhaps as it is our mother tongue. I studied hard for my test, every evening 3 weeks prior to the test. I have never sat IELTS so cannot comment.

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Your article is very useful. Could you pls share some speaking tips? I scored 87 and 90 in all modules except for speaking where it went down to 43. The playback was very mild. Could this be the reason for low score? to my knowledge i did very well in the speaking module compared to others. Not even one hesitation or false start. Do we need to space between words while speaking for the machine to understand? Kindly advice.

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Hi There

 

I'm pleased to read your success story and would like to say thank you as your observation summarize what i have also experienced. I do live in South Africa planning to move to Aussie, ICT Business Analyst. English is proving to be the only hurdle standing in my way. Will you please send me your CD or any study material and more info. PTE exam next week the 14th.

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Hi there.

 

Firstly, I would like to thank for all the useful information everyone provided. It has given me confidence on taking PTE-A test, and I have got some insights on its preparation. I took the gold package kit from the Pearson website, and was practising with some self-learning books (softcopies only).

 

Actually, I have just attended the test yesterday, but waiting for my scores is killing me. Although I felt a bit satisfied with my performance last day, I am getting concerned about my result as Pearson hasn't informed me by email within 24 hours. Based on their exam experiences mentioned on the Internet, many candidates who have taken PTE-A test would more likely get their desired scores if they got their results in a day after testing. Now, it has been one and half day for me, and I have no words from them. Is it a sign that I am going to get a bad mark?

 

Besides that, I was told that they may give me uneven sores if I registered the test with the purpose of immigration to Australia. For example, I might be scored 60 or below on one of those modules while getting 80 or above on the rest, as people believe that Pearson is trying to make money out of examination takers now. By the way, I only need 65+ on each modules for my visa application.

 

I am devastated by these information. Please, is there anyone having any ideas about them?

 

Cheers.

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My apology for previous post. PTE did sent the result to my email address, but it went straight to junk mails. It is quite quick to receive my score, but unfortunately it doesn't meet my expectation. Compared with band 7, my latest IELTS result last December, I got 54 overall in PTE-A while I need 65+ for extra 10 points on my visa application. The worst section is the speaking, only 41. I have lived in Australia for 6 years and hanged out with Aussies a lot, so I don't know what I was doing that part wrong.

 

Now, I am lost completely. Should I prepare IELTS for four 7s, or redo PTE to get four 65s?

Edited by Jim
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