Ben8899 Posted January 22 Author Share Posted January 22 29 minutes ago, BendigoBoy said: Don't do IELTS, mate; that'd be my advice. Do PTE. As someone who did IELTS, TOEFL and PTE, PTE was far more rounded and true to life than the others. IELTS is just a cash cow for its operators. It isn't unknown for those with Masters degrees in English language/lit to walk away with a 7 in writing despite hitting 9s on all other aspects. It's one for "learn by rote" rather than "actually use in real life" learners. Thanks very much for the heads up BBoy - duly noted. I did look at some of the IELTS test papers and felt fairly competent with all but the writing section so maybe ill have a look at PTE instead! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheery Thistle Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 I can’t compare it as I didn’t look at the others, but I wouldn’t call the PTE Academic ‘true to life’ unless you regularly sit and spontaneously describe pictures of the solar system or electric substations in your free time! If you do PTE I recommend completing a couple of mock tests and also using the E2 YouTube videos to help prepare for it. Being a linguist and generally quite literate person I thought it would be easy but I did actually have to study for it. Bear in mind it’s marked by an algorithm so pace, fluency and intonation are really important - I think half the time you could almost be saying anything as long as you are fluent and sound natural! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausvisitor Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 1 hour ago, BendigoBoy said: Don't do IELTS, mate; that'd be my advice. Do PTE. As someone who did IELTS, TOEFL and PTE, PTE was far more rounded and true to life than the others. IELTS is just a cash cow for its operators. It isn't unknown for those with Masters degrees in English language/lit to walk away with a 7 in writing despite hitting 9s on all other aspects. It's one for "learn by rote" rather than "actually use in real life" learners. That happened to me, most annoyed that writing reports for a living and having a masters in English still only got me. 7.5 on IELTS writing PTE taken the next week after finding out the IELTS result and passed all 90s 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sausage Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 I found PTE completely fine. Even as someone who speaks English as their fist language I found the idea of sitting an exam terrifying so I did a decent amount of preparation - about 10 hours worth of research and practice. The really good thing about PTE is that the test is extremely formulaic so preparing for it is straightforward. You can do scored practice tests from home (which cost a little - but are worth it). I did 2 practice tests, 1 after a couple of days of practice to inform me about where I needed to work, and 1 shortly before taking the real exam - more as a confirmation I was ready. I used YouTube tutorials to learn how to properly structure answers. The test was zero fuss, no nonsense. Just sit in front of a computer, type into answer boxes, speak into the headset when you need to. I didn't score under 90 at any point (on either practice paper or the real test) which is how it should be for a native speaker in my opinion. I've heard some horror stories about ILETS where people who are born and bred English, educated to PHD level fail to get the score they need despite talking like Hugh Grant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheery Thistle Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 49 minutes ago, Sausage said: I found PTE completely fine. Even as someone who speaks English as their fist language I found the idea of sitting an exam terrifying so I did a decent amount of preparation - about 10 hours worth of research and practice. The really good thing about PTE is that the test is extremely formulaic so preparing for it is straightforward. You can do scored practice tests from home (which cost a little - but are worth it). I did 2 practice tests, 1 after a couple of days of practice to inform me about where I needed to work, and 1 shortly before taking the real exam - more as a confirmation I was ready. I used YouTube tutorials to learn how to properly structure answers. The test was zero fuss, no nonsense. Just sit in front of a computer, type into answer boxes, speak into the headset when you need to. I didn't score under 90 at any point (on either practice paper or the real test) which is how it should be for a native speaker in my opinion. I've heard some horror stories about ILETS where people who are born and bred English, educated to PHD level fail to get the score they need despite talking like Hugh Grant. Loads of native speakers score less than 90 in sections of the PTE. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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