PTE Highlight Incorrect Words: click carefully

This task shows a transcript while the audio plays, and some written words differ from what is spoken. You click the ones that differ. It is one of the few tasks with negative marking, which changes the strategy completely.

Negative marking is the whole strategy

Every incorrect click deducts a mark. That means clicking anything you are unsure about actively lowers your score.

Three confident correct selections beat eight uncertain ones. Restraint scores better than coverage here, which is the opposite of most other tasks.

Read at the speaker's pace

Follow the text with your eyes exactly in time with the audio. Do not read ahead — if your eyes are ahead of the voice, you cannot compare them.

Some people find it helps to move a finger or the cursor along the line to keep the pace locked.

If you lose your place, stop clicking

Losing sync is the main failure mode, and it usually happens right after you spot a mismatch and pause to think about it.

When it happens, stop clicking, find the speaker's position in the text, and resume. Guessing while out of sync is how people go negative on this task.

What the mismatches sound like

Substituted words are usually similar in sound or grammatical role — a different noun, a changed tense, a singular for a plural.

Listening for meaning is not enough, because a substituted word often still makes sense. You are comparing sound to text, word by word.

Practise with the transcript covered first

Build raw listening accuracy separately, then practise the comparison skill with the text visible.

Short daily practice works better than long sessions — this is a concentration task, and concentration fades fast.

PTE AI is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Pearson. PTE Academic is a trademark of Pearson. All practice material here is original and written for this site.