Have you ever finished writing a PTE essay, read it over, and thought the essay I have written, was clear and made sense and I would score for sure? But then your email box pops up, and you are shocked that your writing score is much lower than you had expected?
If this happened to you, do not worry. You did not fail because your English is bad. You scored low because you wrote your essay like you were chatting with a friend, instead of writing proper essay for a test.
The PTE scoring system is not checking if you can have a friendly chat. It wants to see just formal and academic English. For example, the kind of writing used in academic textbooks, news articles, and any academic reports.
That gap between “correct English” and “formal English or Academic English” is where many students easily lose their marks. Today I am going to discuss why such things happen and will give you simple, step by step tricks to fix the tone of your essay and that is too without making you memorize huge, hard words from the structure or a dictionary.
In this blog, I will show you the exact approach which we teach to our students at Amin Migration to write a high scoring PTE essay.
So, let us start.
1. You Are Writing “Correct English” Yet Losing Score
To get a better score, you need to understand two different ideas between,
(a) Accuracy and,
(b) Tone of your Essay.
(a) Accuracy: Did you follow grammar rules? (Like Correct tenses, spelling, and word order) How casual or formal is your writing? (Casual means you are talking to your friends, where Formal means you are writing an academic note)
So, Accuracy means following basic grammar rules. Your spellings are right, your tenses are correct, and your punctuations work.
(b) Tone: is how formal your words sound. Are you talking to a friend, sending a text message, or writing a university paper?
You know a sentence can have zero grammar errors, yet it can be wrong for the PTE test because it sounds too casual, yes, it sounds “too casual”.
Let us discuss with example,
Sentence: “I think schools shouldn’t give loads of homework because it’s just too stressful for kids.”
Is there a grammar mistake in that sentence?
Answer is No.
But if you write this in your PTE test, your score will drop. Now you would wonder “Why”. The reason is it uses everyday spoken English elements like,
- Short words: shouldn’t, it’s
- Personal opening: I think
- Casual amounts: loads of
- Informal words: kids instead of children or students
These are not the mistakes when it comes to PTE Speaking, but it indicates to AI or Human that you wrote like you speak.
Remember, PTE wants you to write formally not informally.
2. Essay Structure and Scoring
Before you start working on your essay tone, make sure you follow the basic essay structure. You are getting 20 minutes as of now (expecting more in upcoming days) to complete your essay and your essay should be between 200 to 300 words.
| Plan Your Ideas | Type the Essay | Proof Reading |
|---|---|---|
| 4 minutes | 14 minutes | 2 minutes |
As you all know essay contains 4 Paragraphs and they are consisting of,
Paragraph 1: Introduction:
Paraphrase the question in your own words and state your clear opinion.
Paragraph 2: First Main Point:
Write your main point, explain it, and give an example to support your point.
Paragraph 3: Second Main Point:
Write your second main point, explain it, and give another example.
Paragraph 4: Conclusion:
Wrap up your ideas and state your final opinion once again.
Now let us understand How PTE Scores Your Writing.
| Scoring Area | Points | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Content | 3 | Did you answer the question fully? |
| Length (Form) | 2 | Is your essay between 200 and 300 words? |
| Structure | 2 | Are your ideas connected logically with each other? |
| Grammar | 2 | Are your sentence structures grammatically correct? |
| Vocabulary | 2 | Did you use good and formal words? |
| Word Choice | 2 | Can you express ideas clearly? |
| Spelling | 2 | Are your words spelled correctly? |
Note: Content is the most important for scoring, but fixing your casual tone will help you to lift your Grammar, Vocabulary, and Word Choice points all at the same time.
3. What to Do and What Not to Do Instead
When typing fast in an examination centre, your brain naturally uses the words which you are speaking or writing every day. To fix this, you do not need to learn a whole dictionary. Just follow five common habits mentioned below:
1. Writing Short Words
Never combine two words with an apostrophe. Always write out both words in full.
| Instead of | Use |
|---|---|
| don’t | do not |
| can’t | cannot |
| it’s | it is |
| won’t | will not |
| there’s | there is |
| shouldn’t | should not |
2. Repeating “I” and “You” Too Much
Focus on the subject of the sentence, not on yourself.
| Instead of | Use |
|---|---|
| I think social media is bad for young people. | Social media appears to have a negative effect on young people. |
| If you look at big cities, you can see traffic is terrible. | In many large cities, traffic congestion is getting worse. |
3. Writing “People Say”
State the belief directly without blaming a generic group of people.
| Instead of | Use |
|---|---|
| People say that exercise reduces stress. | It is widely believed that exercise reduces stress. |
| Many experts think technology ruins sleep. | It is often argued that technology harms sleep quality. |
4. Using Two-Word Verbs
Daily English relies heavily on simple verb phrases like “look into, put off, or go up.” Formal essays prefer single words that mean the exact same thing:
| Two-Word Verb | Formal Word | Example Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Go up | Increase / Rise | Prices will increase over time. |
| Go down | Decrease / Drop | Infection rates continue to decrease. |
| Look into | Investigate / Study | Researchers need to study the problem. |
| Put off | Delay / Postpone | Leaders should not delay environmental action. |
| Set up | Create / Build | The charity was created to help children. |
| Bring about | Cause / Lead to | New rules can lead to better results. |
| Get in | Enter / Access | Students must pass the test to gain access. |
| Point out | Show / Highlight | The report highlights key problems. |
5. Using Casual Extra Words
In casual talk, words like really, a lot of, loads of, and huge are used all the time but in formal essays, these sound vague. Swapping them out makes your essay sound smarter.
| Casual Words | Academic Words |
|---|---|
| Lots of / Loads of | A large amount of / A significant number of |
| Really / Super | Very / Particularly / Highly |
| Big / Huge | Large / Significant / Major |
| Kids | Children / Students |
| Things | Factors / Issues / Reasons |
4. Phrases
To save time during the test, keep a few ready-made phrases in your mind. You can connect your ideas straight into these structures.
(a) For Opinion
- It seems reasonable to suggest that…
- There is a strong reason to believe that…
- This essay will show that…
(b) For Ideas
- It is widely believed that…
- It is often suggested that…
- A common opinion is that…
(c) To Add Examples
- A clear example of this is…
- This can be clearly seen in…
- For instance, consider the case of…
(d) For Cause and Effect
- This is mainly due to…
- As a result…
- This, in turn, leads to…
5. Full Paragraph Comparison
Here is what a complete paragraph looks like when you use academic tone.
Casual Paragraph:
“I think social media is really bad for teenagers because they spend loads of time scrolling instead of doing their homework or hanging out with friends in real life. A lot of parents don’t even notice how much time their kids spend on their phones.”
Formal Paragraph (Academic):
“It is widely believed that social media has a negative effect on teenagers, largely because a lot of time is spent scrolling rather than doing schoolwork or meeting friends in person. Additionally, many parents do not notice how much time their children spend on their devices.”
Last but not the least, if you really want to score an ace in PTE Academic test, start with a small step like take out 5 minutes daily and write down 2 or 3 sentences about any topic every day, then run through this quick five steps as mentioned below,
- Expand all short words (change “don’t” to “do not”).
- Remove “I”, “We”, or “You” at the start of sentences.
- Change “People say” to “It is said” or “It is believed”.
- Swap two-word verbs for single formal words (change “go up” to “increase”).
- Upgrade academic words (change “loads of” to “A significant number of”).
If you practice this short guide every day for a week or two, formal writing will become automatic and on the test day, you will not have to stress rather you will naturally write the formal way as PTE expects and this time when your email box pops up, you will not be shocked at all.
Best of Luck.