How to Plan Your Studies for PTE Academic

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How to Plan Your Studies for PTE Academic
Taking an exam like the PTE Academic Test is a sig
nificant endeavour. You are likely to spend
several weeks or months preparing for the exam.
To make sure that you achieve your goal in the
first attempt, it is important to make a plan for
your studies. Your precious time should be
spent in a way that leads you to a good PTE
Score.
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The very first thing that you need to identify
is your goal and in this case that is your
desired score. Getting a score of 79 plus is not
always more difficult than getting a score of 65
plus. It all depends upon the person and current
level of language skills. For someone who is
reasonably confident of her language skills
getting a 79 plus score will be easier compared
to someone who really struggles while speaking
in English but needs to get only a 65 plus
score. So, the first step is this Identify you
desired score. If you are planning to apply for
a visa, the visa requirements will tell you what
score you need to aim for. If you are applying
for a University admission, the admission
requirements will specify the score needed. The
second step is to rate your current skill level
and understand the gap that you need to
overcome. For this you can try one of the
official Pearson practice tests or if that is
not possible then you can go through some PTE
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Academic Test tutorials on YouTube. If you do
that, make sure you pick videos from a reliable
source. Once you have completed the second step,
you will have a reasonable idea of your current
skill level. You will know which language skills
you need to work upon, whether it is your
Speaking, Writing, Reading or Listening. If you
are looking at a score of 79 plus or a
significant jump over your previous score, you
may also have to work on your core language
skills such as Grammar and Vocabulary. Now, it is
time for the third step which is to actually draw
up a plan. Ideally, you would have at least 3
or 4 weeks before you take your PTE Academic
Test. But several people have to give the exam
at a short notice, within a week or so. In
either case, you can divide your preparation in
the following stages. If you have 4 weeks
or more you can
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• give more time to each stage, if only a week then
  you will only touch each topic briefly.
• The preparation stages are
• Understanding the PTE Academic structure
• You must be very clear about the exam structure,
  the sections tested, the time allocated for each
  section and so on.
• Understand each question type
• This has 20 subparts corresponding to each of the
  20 question types asked in the PTE. You should
  be very clear about the question prompts, the
  instructions, the scoring pattern and the
  methods to tackle each of these question types.
  This is similar to putting a foundation while
  building a house. On the exam day your mind
  should immediately tell you how to proceed with
  a question. There should be no need to look at
  any standard instructions or to think about how
  to approach a question.

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3. Practice each question type If you have
only a week or couple of weeks to go, then you
wouldnt be able to get a lot of practice unless
you put in six hours or more every day. If you
cant do that then try to practice at least a
few questions of each type enough to give you
some confidence and familiarity with that
question type. Ideally, you should be able to
devote at least one day to practicing each of
these question types. But since most people
giving the PTE Exam are working or studying full
time this is often not possible. So, just make a
guess of number of hours you will be able to
take out for your preparation in a day and
multiple it with the number of days you have
till your PTE exam. Divide that with twenty and
you will know how much time you have to spend on
each question type. Of course, you can make
adjustments here. For example, if you find Answer
Short Question easy enough then you can take
out half
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• the time from it and add it to the time you have
  for practicing Write Essay questions.
• At the end, your goal should be to get to a stage
  where you feel confident while approaching these
  2o question types.
• Firm up your core language skills
• If you are aiming for a big jump over your
  previous PTE or IELTS score then you will need
  to pay attention to your core language skills.
  Every day set aside some time for brushing up
  your grammar basics, going through the PTE word
  list and doing some general language practice by
  reading newspaper or online, watching some
  videos, etc.
• Check your progress midway
• Midway during your preparation take out some time
  to check your progress. If you are taking a PTE
  Online Course you can try one of the mock tests
  or even take an official PTE Practice test to
  see where you stand now.

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Compare the results with the evaluation
that you did before starting the preparation.
The results may indicate that you are well on
track. If not, they will highlight the areas
that you need to focus on for the rest of your
preparation. 6. Time for review Leave the day
before the exam or even a couple of days before
the exam for a simple review. Dont rush to do
mock tests, dont watch new videos on YouTube,
dont try to learn any new strategies. Just
trust your preparation and close any loose
ends. If you draw up a plan like this with
careful thinking you will most definitely find
yourself doing well on the exam day. So, take
the first step and sit down to plan your PTE
Preparation.