Is there negative marking in Highlight Incorrect Words?

Yes. Highlight Incorrect Words is one of the few PTE items with an explicit deduction: +1 for each word you correctly identify, −1 for each word you click that wasn't wrong, with a minimum of 0 for the item. A wrong click cancels out a right one, so blind guessing costs you more than it gains.

What the deduction can and can't do

The floor matters. The item can't go below zero, so you can't damage other questions or drag your Listening score into negative territory by over-clicking. What you can do is wipe out the marks you'd already earned inside that same item — three correct clicks and three wrong ones leaves you with nothing.

Where else this applies

The same −1 rule applies to Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers in both Reading and Listening. It does not apply to single-answer multiple choice, to any fill-in-the-blanks task, or to Reorder Paragraphs. Those are all safe to attempt at any confidence level.

The actual break-even

Mathematically it's 50%: above that, clicking is worth it on average; below it, it isn't. The catch is that people are bad at estimating their own confidence in this task. With an unfamiliar accent, a word that differs only in tense or number, or a passage you've fallen behind in, 'pretty sure' is often closer to a coin flip than it feels.

So treat 50% as the theoretical line and something noticeably above it as your working rule. If you can name the word you actually heard, click. If you only sense that something felt off, leave it — a skipped word costs you 0.

How to stay in position

The trap in this task isn't hearing the difference, it's losing your place. Keep your eyes one or two words ahead of the voice and click the moment you hear a divergence — don't finish the sentence and then go back, because by then the audio has moved on and you'll be reading and listening to different parts of the text.

Remember you're listening for a mismatch, not for a word that sounds wrong. The replacement words are usually perfectly plausible in context and often similar-sounding, which is exactly why reading ahead silently before the audio starts — if you get the chance — is worth the seconds.

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