A realistic 4-week PTE study plan

Most study plans fail because they treat every task equally and demand hours a day. This one is built around the tasks that carry the most marks, and assumes you have somewhere between thirty and sixty minutes on a normal day.

Before you start: find your baseline

Take one short mock so you know which sections are actually weak. Guessing wastes weeks — plenty of people drill speaking when their real problem is a mechanical writing rule.

Write down your four section scores. You will re-test at the end of week two and week four against these numbers.

Week 1 — fix the free marks

Learn and internalise the mechanical rules: essay 200–300 words, Summarize Written Text one sentence, Summarize Spoken Text 50–70 words.

Daily: ten Write from Dictation sentences and ten minutes of Read Aloud, recorded and reviewed. These two alone touch every section score.

Week 2 — attack your weakest section

Keep the daily Write from Dictation and Read Aloud, then add twenty minutes on whichever section your baseline showed weakest.

Re-test at the end of the week with a short mock. If nothing moved, the problem is usually technique rather than effort — check whether you are breaking a form rule or hesitating in speaking.

Week 3 — build range and speed

Writing: practise essays to time, focusing on varied sentence structures. Reading: work on collocations and stop re-reading passages.

Speaking: drill Describe Image and Retell Lecture with a fixed frame so you never stall mid-answer.

Week 4 — stamina and timing

Now do full-length timed mocks, mainly to train concentration for the final Listening section where fatigue costs the most marks.

Stop learning new techniques in the last few days. Consolidate what works, keep the daily Write from Dictation going, and rest properly before the test.

• Daily non-negotiables: 10 Write from Dictation + 10 min Read Aloud
• Re-test with a short mock at the end of weeks 2 and 4
• Spend extra time only on your weakest section
• Full-length mocks belong in week 4, not week 1

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