PTE Academic Speaking Practice Test 1

Read this text aloud: Coral reefs support roughly a quarter of all marine species, yet they occupy less than one percent of the ocean floor. When water temperatures rise for a prolonged period, corals expel the tiny algae that feed them, and their tissue turns pale. Scientists call this stressful process bleaching, and it can spread across an entire reef within weeks.

Read this text aloud: The invention of the printing press did more than speed up the copying of books. It lowered the cost of ideas, allowing ordinary people to read texts that had once been locked away in monasteries. Within a single generation, new opinions travelled across borders faster than any ruler could contain them, reshaping religion, science and politics alike.

Read this text aloud: Sleep is not a passive state in which the brain simply switches off. During the deeper stages of rest, the mind sorts through the day’s experiences, strengthening useful memories and discarding trivial details. People who sleep too little often struggle to concentrate the next morning, because the brain has had too little time to complete this quiet nightly repair work.

Read this text aloud: Volunteering offers benefits that reach far beyond the community being helped. Studies suggest that people who give their time regularly report lower stress and a stronger sense of purpose. By working alongside others toward a shared goal, volunteers often build friendships and practical skills that prove valuable long after the project itself has ended.

Read this text aloud: Rivers have shaped human settlement for thousands of years, providing water, transport and fertile soil. Ancient cities grew along their banks because trade could move easily by boat and crops rarely failed. Today many of those same rivers are under pressure from pollution and heavy demand, forcing communities to rethink how they share a limited and precious resource.

Sentence to repeat: The library extends its opening hours during the exam period.

Sentence to repeat: Students must submit their final essays before Friday afternoon.

Sentence to repeat: Our new lecturer specialises in the economics of renewable energy.

Sentence to repeat: Please remember to charge your laptop before the seminar begins.

Sentence to repeat: The results of the survey will be published early next month.

Described image (in the real test this is a chart or picture): A bar chart titled Weekly Coffee Sales at a Campus Cafe compares five days. The vertical axis shows cups sold from zero to three hundred. Monday sits at about one hundred and forty cups, Tuesday at one hundred and sixty, Wednesday rises to two hundred and ten, Thursday reaches the peak of two hundred and eighty, and Friday falls sharply to ninety cups. Weekdays are shown as blue bars along the horizontal axis.

Described image (in the real test this is a chart or picture): A pie chart titled How City Residents Travel to Work divides commuters into five slices. Private car is the largest at forty percent, public bus takes twenty five percent, cycling accounts for fifteen percent, walking makes up twelve percent, and the remaining eight percent travel by train. The car and bus slices together fill nearly two thirds of the circle.

Described image (in the real test this is a chart or picture): A process diagram titled The Life Cycle of a Butterfly shows four stages connected by arrows in a circle. Stage one is a cluster of tiny eggs on a leaf. An arrow leads to stage two, a caterpillar feeding on foliage. The next arrow points to stage three, a chrysalis hanging from a branch. The final arrow reaches stage four, an adult butterfly, which then returns to lay new eggs.

Lecture text: Today I want to talk about why cities feel warmer than the countryside around them. This effect is known as the urban heat island. Concrete and asphalt absorb sunlight during the day and release that heat slowly at night, so streets stay warm long after sunset. Tall buildings also trap warm air and block cooling breezes, while air conditioners pump extra heat outdoors. The lack of trees makes things worse, because plants normally cool the air as water evaporates from their leaves. Planners are now responding by adding green roofs, planting more street trees, and using pale, reflective surfaces that bounce sunlight away rather than storing it.

Lecture text: Let us look at how honeybees communicate the location of food. When a forager finds a rich patch of flowers, she returns to the hive and performs a movement called the waggle dance. She walks in a straight line while shaking her body, then loops back and repeats the pattern. The direction of that straight run, measured against the sun, tells other bees which way to fly. The length of the waggle signals how far away the food is. Remarkably, bees can adjust for the sun moving across the sky, so their directions stay accurate even hours later. This tiny dance lets a colony share information with astonishing precision.

Lecture text: I want to introduce the idea of opportunity cost, one of the most useful concepts in economics. Whenever you choose to do something, you give up the next best alternative, and that sacrificed option is the true cost of your decision. Imagine you have one free evening. If you spend it studying, the opportunity cost is the rest or the socialising you gave up. Money works the same way. A government that funds a new stadium cannot spend that same money on hospitals or schools. Recognising opportunity cost helps individuals and governments make clearer choices, because it forces us to compare what we gain against what we quietly leave behind.

What do we call the frozen form of water that falls from the sky in cold weather?

What instrument would you normally use to measure the temperature of a room?

What do we call the person who flies an aeroplane?

How many days are there in a single week?

What do we call the meal that people usually eat in the morning?