Tips to boost your score in PTE Essay

by Sureway English surewayenglish

The PTE Academic contains four sections and twenty types of questions across these four sections. All twenty question types are important to get a high score in the exam. But no question type carries the weightage that PTE Essay question does. You will usually find only two of these questions in your exam. Each question will have twenty minutes for you to write a good response. If you do, these two essay questions can make up more than twenty percent of your writing score. We will give you some simple tips to boost your score in your PTE essay.

Just like it is location, location and location when you are constructing a building, it is structure, structure and structure when you are writing an essay. You can write the most beautiful statements and most capture most profound insights in your essay, but if you don’t stick to an expected structure, your score will be low in this question type.

Academic exams like PTE and IELTS are a test of your comfort level in using English in academic situations. It is not a test of your creativity. You don’t need to be smart, you don’t need to be creative, you need to show that you know how to use English in work or in study. In Academic situations, whatever you write should conform to a strict structure.

The structure in essays in PTE and IELTS usually consists of a clear introduction, couple of paragraphs which explain your point of view and then a clear conclusion. If you clump your points together or don’t divide them according to their specific purpose, you will not get good marks.

So, the first and most important tip is this – understand the structure of a good essay and write according to it.

Once you have nailed the structure, the next important thing is to make sure the content is as per the essay prompt. Many people misjudge the essay prompt. If you don’t write according to what you have been asked, you can’t expect to get marks for it. So, please spend some time in the beginning and become clear on what the essay expects from you.

Next tip – show that you have a strong command over language. PTE wants to see that you know which words are suitable for which academic situation. If you show appropriate diversity in your essay and use the right amount of academic words, you will get good marks for it. It is a good habit to simply replace some words that appear too often in the essay, with their more difficult and academic sounding counterparts.

The final tip – do not be lazy and do not try to find a shortcut for grammar. Spend a few weeks improving your grammar skills. The benefits you will see not just in your writing, but speaking, reading and also listening. Most writing questions have points for grammar. If your grammar is good, half the battle is won.

With some prior preparation it is not difficult to score cent percent in the writing section of PTE Academic. Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and do it!