Pearson has announced important updates to PTE Academic and PTE Academic UKVI, effective from 7 August 2025. These updates aim to make the test even more authentic, balanced, and reflective of real-life academic English use. If you’re planning to take the PTE soon, here’s everything you need to know about the new changes and what they mean for your preparation.

PTE Remains Fast, Fair, and Reliable

While these updates enhance the test, Pearson emphasizes that the core advantages remain unchanged:

• Same test structure: The test still includes Speaking & Writing, Reading, and Listening sections.
• Same 20 original question types remain (with 2 new additions).
• AI-powered scoring continues to judge your English skills impartially, without bias toward accents.
• Fast results within 2 days (max 5 days).

What’s Changing in PTE Academic from August 7, 2025?

1. Introduction of Two New Question Types

Pearson is adding two new tasks to the Speaking & Writing section:

Summarize Group Discussion

• Task: Listen to a discussion between three people, then summarize it in your own words.
• Audio Length: Up to 3 minutes
• Skills Assessed: Listening & Speaking
• Time to Answer: 2 minutes

This task reflects real-life academic and professional contexts, where group discussions are common. The aim is to test how well you can extract key ideas, distinguish speaker contributions, and present a coherent summary.

Tips:

• Taking effective notes
• Separating main ideas and details
• Using linking words for logical flow
• Avoiding mentioning every small detail (focus on summary)

Respond to a Situation

• Task: Listen to and read a description of a situation, then respond with a spoken answer.
• Prompt Length: Up to 60 words
• Skills Assessed: Speaking
• Time to Answer: 40 seconds

This task tests your ability to produce a practical, natural spoken response in real-life scenarios, like clarifying information, giving instructions, or requesting details.

For example, one prompt might be:

“You are doing a group project for a class. The other members of your group have asked you to prepare the slides for the presentation. You are willing to do the slides but need them to give you all the information before the weekend. What would you say to them?”

An excellent sample answer provided by Pearson:

“Hi everyone! I’m happy to create the slides for this presentation we’re giving. To be successful though, I’ll need you each to send me all the information and content you’ve gathered for our group project before this coming weekend so I’ll have enough time to complete the slides. Please send the information to my email by end of day this Friday – does that work for everyone?”

This new question emphasizes spontaneous, real-world communication skills.

2. Increased Number of Questions in Some Tasks

Pearson has increased the overall number of questions in the test. The updated test now contains 65–75 tasks (previously 52–64). The Speaking & Writing section duration is now extended to 76–84 minutes, accommodating the two additional tasks.

For example:

• Describe Image: increased from 3–4 to 5–6 questions
• Retell Lecture: increased from 1–2 to 2–3 questions
• Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation: new, 2–3 questions each

Rationale:
More open-response questions balance the test and provide more opportunities to showcase higher-order thinking and authentic English use.

 

3. Changes in Skills Contribution (Single-Skill Scoring)

Previously, some questions contributed to scores in multiple skills. From August, four question types will now count toward only one skill:

This simplifies scoring and makes skill assessment clearer and more focused.

4. Expanded Scoring Rubrics for Speaking and Writing

Some extended speaking and writing tasks will have expanded rating scales, with more granular scoring to better differentiate performance levels. For instance:

• Summarize Written Text: content is now rated on a scale of 0–4 (previously 0–2)
• Write Essay (Content, Development, Structure and Coherence, General Linguistic Range): now rated up to 0–6 for each trait (previously 0–3 or 0–2)

This ensures fairer and more precise scoring for tasks requiring complex written or spoken responses.

5. Extended Human Scoring

Pearson introduced limited human scoring in November 2024 for certain tasks (like Describe Image and Retell Lecture). From August 2025, five more question types will also receive human checks for content relevance and originality:

• Summarize Group Discussion (new)
• Respond to a Situation (new)
• Summarize Written Text
• Write Essay
• Summarize Spoken Text

However, oral fluency and pronunciation are still scored solely by AI. Human scorers check whether your content is relevant, original, and effectively developed. If there’s disagreement between the human rater and the AI, a second expert reviews the response.

Updated PTE and IELTS Score Equivalency (July 2025)

Pearson has also released a new score equivalence table in July 2025, reflecting updated research. 

These updates help institutions and test-takers align their score expectations more accurately. Please refer University’s website to see updated PTE score requirements for different courses.

Why These Changes Matter

These updates are a major step forward for PTE Academic:

·       More authentic test reflecting real-life communication

·       Fairer and more precise scoring, especially for higher-level writing and speaking

·       Clearer understanding of which tasks assess which skills

·       Human checks improve reliability in assessing complex responses

Overall, PTE Academic is becoming even more robust, transparent, and aligned to real-world English use.

If you’re preparing for PTE Academic from August 7, 2025, onwards, make sure you practice the new question types and stay updated on the expanded scoring rubrics. This will give you the best chance of achieving your target score.

Preparation tips:

• Practice summarizing discussions (group conversations, podcasts).
• Work on spontaneous spoken responses for everyday situations.
• Review the updated rubrics to target high-scoring performance.

Ready to prepare for the new PTE Academic?
Keep following our blog for practice materials and tips for the August 2025 updates!