PTE Retell Lecture | FREE PTE Tutorials

PTE exam questions are modelled around real life situations. The test basically tries to check if you will be comfortable studying or working in an English speaking environment. One of such question types is the PTE Retell Lecture.

If you study or work in an English speaking country you will come across many situations where you will be attending lectures or seminars. These could be in your classroom, or if at work it can be a meeting or an industry roundtable or seminar. In such situations it is important that your English skills are good enough for you to understand and make sense of that lecture.

That is what PTE Retell Lecture is all about!

In a nutshell, in PTE Retell Lecture you will listen to a lecture or seminar or another such audio. Once you have done that you will be required to record your response. In your response you will retell what you have just understand from the lecture in your own words.

Along with the lecture you will see an image. This is very helpful as it gives you a basic idea of what you are about to listen. You can use this to put your mind in the right frame for listening. Sometimes if the lecture is very difficult, in worse case you have not been able to understand anything at all – you can give some kind of an answer just based on the image. However, this should be your last option – because most of the times the image won’t convey the whole meaning of the lecture on its own.

Once the lecture ends you will have 10 seconds to organize your thoughts and frame your response. After that the microphone will open up and you must start speaking. You will get about 40 seconds to give you response.

What determines your score in the retell lecture questions? Well, it is much the same as other questions in PTE Speaking section!

The content of your response

If your answer is just gibberish nothing else will matter. It won’t matter how fluent or native like you sound if your answer doesn’t convey the right information. So make sure that you listen attentively and capture all the key points in the lecture.

Your fluency

Your score in PTE Retell Lecture questions depend on a large extent to the fluency of your response. Don’t doubt yourself once you start speaking or hesitate during the speech. You also must not start and stop again and again. Be confident and deliver your response in one go. This would depend to a large extent on how ready you are with your response. So use the 10 seconds before the recording starts to properly organize your response.

Your pronunciation

As in all other speaking questions pronunciation is very important in PTE Retell Lecture questions too. You do not need to mimic native speakers – first and foremost your pronunciation should be clear with a neutral accent. That means people listening to you should be able to understand what you are saying without much difficulty.

If your pronunciation and fluency have issues it can take some time to fix those. But it is not something that can’t be done with systematic planning and dedicated effort. Start with a simple routine of listening and speaking. Immerse yourself in an English environment as much as possible – if you are already in an English speaking country like Australia then that’s wonderful! Otherwise you can create that environment for yourself by watching videos and listening to podcasts.

Please also read the PTE Retell Lecture Tips and Tricks for more helpful advice!

One of the key skills that you need to master for this question type – how to identify which information is the most in a lecture?

Every retell lecture in your PTE exam will have a different structure. In some questions the speaker will directly get to the important point, while in other questions the speaker will first speak about something general and then come to the main point.

Therefore, maintain your focus!

When the speaker puts emphasize or repeats similar type of words that is usually an indication of the theme of the lecture. Numbers, events, examples – are all also very important.

Remember to check out the tips and tricks for PTE Retell Lecture article on our website for more ideas on how to improve your speaking ability and specifically how to do better at the PTE Retell Lecture questions!