Part 3: Listening

PTE Listening Practice

Part 3 of PTE Academic is listening: 31 to 39 minutes and eight question types, ending with Write from Dictation. Practice each one here with audio, instant marking and a full transcript after you answer.

Start Listening Test 1 See all 50 listening tests

50 free PTE listening tests

Each test has 12 questions covering all eight listening question types. Summarize Spoken Text has its own 10 minutes, then one timer runs for the rest. About 25 minutes. You get an estimated listening score and a full review at the end. Every question is unique to its test.

  1. 1 Listening Test 1History of ether anesthesia, airport wildlife control, runway numbering, barber surgeons, low-cost airlines
  2. 2 Listening Test 2Airline hub networks, chloroform, contrails, surgical gloves, handwashing in hospitals
  3. 3 Listening Test 3 HarderSafety checklists, sustainable aviation fuel, curare, crew resource management, early Japanese anesthesia
  4. 4 Listening Test 4Airport noise, Ambroise Pare, terminal design, anesthesia in childbirth, pulse oximetry
  5. 5 Listening Test 5Surgery before anesthesia, airport cities, airport codes, airline overbooking, spinal anesthesia
  6. 6 Listening Test 6 HarderInfant gut microbes, loss aversion, stool transplants, the gambler's fallacy, the gut-brain axis
  7. 7 Listening Test 7Prospect theory, diet and microbial diversity, probiotics and prebiotics, the availability heuristic, the hygiene hypothesis
  8. 8 Listening Test 8Expected utility, germ-free mice, lactose digestion, commitment devices, overconfidence, bacteriophages
  9. 9 Listening Test 9 HarderGut microbes and medicines, dread risk, bile acids, ambiguity aversion, default effects, stomach ulcers
  10. 10 Listening Test 10Microbes and immunity, group polarization, communicating medical risk, identifying gut bacteria, satisficing
  11. 11 Listening Test 11Habit formation, rainforest layers, rainforest soils, self-control strategies, epiphytes
  12. 12 Listening Test 12 HarderRainforest water cycle, ego depletion, seed dispersal, environment design, medicinal plants
  13. 13 Listening Test 13Fresh starts and goals, Brazil nut ecology, habits in the brain, leaf-cutter ants, sleep and self-control
  14. 14 Listening Test 14Shifting cultivation, nudges and healthy eating, poison dart frogs, breaking bad habits, rainforest carbon
  15. 15 Listening Test 15 HarderForest fragmentation, social influence on habits, cloud forests, rewards and motivation, satellite forest monitoring
  16. 16 Listening Test 16Fire-adapted pine cones, western boundary currents, prescribed burning, coastal upwelling, wildfire smoke
  17. 17 Listening Test 17Global conveyor belt, fire scars in tree rings, ember attack on homes, Franklin and the Gulf Stream, Humboldt Current
  18. 18 Listening Test 18 HarderFire suppression paradox, Antarctic Circumpolar Current, post-fire debris flows, larval drift, ocean eddies
  19. 19 Listening Test 19Wildfire detection, drifting objects as current tracers, firebreaks, the Coriolis effect, sea turtle migration
  20. 20 Listening Test 20Charcoal in lake sediments, firefighting aircraft, the Agulhas Current, sailing routes and trade winds, smoke-triggered germination
  21. 21 Listening Test 21 HarderTides and the moon, bias in machine learning, salt marshes, overfitting, cliff erosion
  22. 22 Listening Test 22Managed retreat, early history of artificial intelligence, tide pools, explainable models, tidal range
  23. 23 Listening Test 23Language models, tidal energy, beach nourishment, neural networks, tide prediction
  24. 24 Listening Test 24 HarderEnergy use of artificial intelligence, mangroves, storm surges, self-driving cars, coastal squeeze
  25. 25 Listening Test 25Cliff erosion, artificial intelligence in medical imaging, estuaries, deepfakes, machine translation
  26. 26 Listening Test 26Collaborative robots, sound in early cinema, welding robots, silent film music, widescreen formats
  27. 27 Listening Test 27 HarderNitrate film preservation, lights-out factories, Technicolor, robot grippers, early special effects
  28. 28 Listening Test 28The Hollywood studio system, cel animation, robot safety, film noir, automation and jobs
  29. 29 Listening Test 29Electronics assembly robots, documentary film, bin picking, drive-in theaters, the Production Code
  30. 30 Listening Test 30 HarderDigital cinema projection, robot learning, Italian neorealism, soft robotics, the French New Wave
  31. 31 Listening Test 31Camera obscura, synthetic dyes, exposure settings, cotton processing, textile waste
  32. 32 Listening Test 32Digital image sensors, wool fibers, darkroom processing, the Jacquard loom, indigo and denim
  33. 33 Listening Test 33 HarderMechanized spinning, color film chemistry, trend forecasting, depth of field, motion studies, textile recycling
  34. 34 Listening Test 34Astronomical photography, natural and synthetic fibers, lens focal length, knitting and weaving, smartphone cameras, fashion seasons
  35. 35 Listening Test 35 HarderGarment supply chains, preserving photographs, water use in textiles, street photography, outdoor fabrics, natural dyeing
  36. 36 Listening Test 36 HarderTextile fiber recycling, canal locks and water supply, container shipping, secondhand clothing exports, canal towpaths
  37. 37 Listening Test 37The Erie Canal, online clothing resale, ballast water, denim production, clothing take-back schemes
  38. 38 Listening Test 38Recycled wool, slow steaming, school uniform exchanges, hull fouling, canal restoration, load lines
  39. 39 Listening Test 39 HarderCanal size limits and ship design, producer responsibility for clothing, microfibers, inland waterway freight, digital product passports
  40. 40 Listening Test 40Ship recycling, the Grand Canal of China, clothing swaps, boat lifts, recycled polyester, secondhand fashion
  41. 41 Listening Test 41Reflecting telescopes, battery reuse and recycling, regenerative braking, light pollution, early electric cars
  42. 42 Listening Test 42 HarderVehicle to grid charging, observatory site selection, stellar spectroscopy, fast charging, space telescopes
  43. 43 Listening Test 43Range anxiety, infrared telescopes, Galileo and the telescope, electric buses, segmented mirrors
  44. 44 Listening Test 44Solar telescopes, smart charging, lithium-ion batteries, amateur astronomy, electric two-wheelers
  45. 45 Listening Test 45 HarderRadio quiet zones, electric trucks, satellite streaks, battery thermal management, observatories and longitude
  46. 46 Listening Test 46Comet structure, food loss and waste, the asteroid belt, seed vaults, meteor showers
  47. 47 Listening Test 47Asteroid deflection, hidden hunger, comet reservoirs, grain reserves, the origin of Earth's water
  48. 48 Listening Test 48 HarderAsteroid mining, climate and crop yields, food environments, the Yarkovsky effect, the Green Revolution
  49. 49 Listening Test 49The four pillars of food security, a comet landing mission, urban farming, locust swarms, Trojan asteroids
  50. 50 Listening Test 50Synthetic fertilizer, impact frequency, fish farming, interstellar visitors, drought tolerant grains

The eight listening question types

Question typeWhat you doAudioCounts toward
Summarize Spoken TextWrite a 50 to 70 word summary60 to 90 sListening, Writing
Listening: Multiple Choice, Multiple AnswersChoose all correct options80 to 120 sListening
Listening: Fill in the BlanksType the missing words30 to 60 sListening, Writing
Highlight Correct SummaryChoose the best summary30 to 90 sListening, Reading
Listening: Multiple Choice, Single AnswerChoose the one correct answer30 to 90 sListening
Select Missing WordChoose how the recording ends20 to 70 sListening
Highlight Incorrect WordsClick words that differ from the audio15 to 50 sListening, Reading
Write from DictationType a sentence exactly3 to 5 sListening, Writing

Four speaking tasks also feed your listening score: Repeat Sentence, Retell Lecture, Answer Short Question and Summarize Group Discussion.

You hear each recording once

In the test, every recording plays once, automatically, after a short countdown. There is no pause or replay. That changes how you should practice: listen once under test conditions first, answer, and only then replay to find what you missed. Practice mode here lets you replay after answering, and mock tests play each recording once, as the exam does.

Taking useful notes

At the test center you get an erasable noteboard. Notes help most in Summarize Spoken Text and Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers, where the recordings are longest. Write content words only (nouns, numbers, key verbs) and use arrows or short symbols for cause and contrast. In Highlight Incorrect Words and Listening Fill in the Blanks, don't take notes at all: follow the transcript with your eyes and react to each word as you hear it.

About the audio on MocksPTE

Every listening recording on MocksPTE is produced with natural-sounding neural voices in a range of accents, including American, British, Australian, Irish, Canadian, New Zealand and Indian English. Talks and lectures are read at a measured pace, group discussions use a different voice for each speaker with natural pauses between turns, and each recording plays once, as in the test. They are generated voices rather than recordings of actors, so keep listening to real academic speech (lectures, podcasts, radio) as well to train your ear for the full variety of real speakers.

Choose a listening task

5 questions

Summarize Spoken Text

Write a 50 to 70 word summary of a short lecture.

Practice Summarize Spoken Text
4 questions

Listening: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers

Choose every correct option after a longer recording.

Practice Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers
6 questions

Listening: Fill in the Blanks

Type the missing words into a transcript as you listen.

Practice Listening Fill in the Blanks
5 questions

Highlight Correct Summary

Choose the summary that matches the recording.

Practice Highlight Correct Summary
5 questions

Listening: Multiple Choice, Single Answer

Answer one question about a short recording.

Practice Multiple Choice, Single Answer
6 questions

Select Missing Word

Predict how a recording ends after a beep replaces it.

Practice Select Missing Word
6 questions

Highlight Incorrect Words

Spot the words in a transcript that differ from the audio.

Practice Highlight Incorrect Words
20 questions

Write from Dictation

Type a short sentence exactly as you hear it.

Practice Write from Dictation

Frequently asked questions

Can I replay the audio in the PTE listening section?

No. Each recording plays once in the real test. MocksPTE practice mode lets you replay after you answer so you can learn from mistakes, while the mock tests play each recording once.

Which listening tasks have negative marking?

Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers and Highlight Incorrect Words. In both, wrong selections cancel correct ones, down to a minimum of zero for the question.

Why is Write from Dictation so important?

It contributes to both listening and writing, gives a point for every correct word and appears at the end of the test when many candidates are tired. Accurate spelling and full attention here are worth practicing daily.