PTE Academic · Listening
PTE Listening Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers
You hear a talk once, then tick every option it actually supports — the question tells you more than one is right.
A short talk plays once, up to two minutes long, and you get seven seconds after the question appears to read it and every option before the audio starts. The question and the options stay on screen the whole time, and it always tells you that more than one option is correct. Every option you correctly tick is a point, and every option you tick that isn't correct takes a point away — your score on the question can never go below zero. The task counts towards your Listening score only.
How the task works
Read, listen once, tick as you go
The recording starts by itself once the seven seconds are up. The question and every option stay on screen for as long as you need them, during the audio and after it.
Read the question and every option
Before the audio starts, read the question first so you know what you're listening for, then skim all the options so a matching idea doesn't go past you unnoticed.
Tick as you hear the answer take shape
Tick an option as soon as you're confident about it — you can untick it again before you move on, so an early tick isn't final. The talk plays once, so don't wait for a second chance to confirm what you already caught.
Count your ticks before you add one more
The question always tells you more than one option is right, so don't stop at your first tick. But every extra box you tick on a hunch can take back a point you already earned — only add one more if you're genuinely sure.
How Pearson scores it
A point for every right tick, a point off for every wrong one
Each option is scored on its own. A correct option you tick earns a point, an incorrect option you tick loses one, and an option you leave alone — right or wrong — changes nothing.
Correct and incorrect ticks
You earn a point for every correct option you tick, and lose a point for every incorrect option you tick. An option you leave untouched earns nothing and costs nothing, whether it was right or wrong. Your total on the question can never drop below zero.
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers counts towards your Listening score only. Two or three of these appear in a test, and because a wrong tick costs exactly what a right one is worth, ticking everything you're merely curious about works against you.
What usually goes wrong
Where students lose points
Ticking one more option just to be safe
You've found two options you're sure of, and a third one looks tempting. If it's wrong, that tick doesn't just fail to add a point — it takes back one you already earned. The arithmetic itself is the strategy here, not just your listening.
Stopping after the first correct option
The question always says more than one option is right, so a single confident tick is never the finished answer. Keep listening for a second idea even after you've found one you're sure of.
Trusting an option that reuses the right words
A distractor is often built from a fact the speaker really did mention, attached to a claim the speaker didn't make. Judge each option against what the speaker actually argued, not against whether its wording sounds familiar.
Losing the thread over a longer recording
At up to two minutes, this talk runs longer than most Listening tasks. Losing focus a third of the way through can cost you the option that was stated there, with nothing on screen to bring it back.
Worked example
One talk, five options, two correct — and where a third tick cost a point
Here is a talk of the kind you hear in this task: “Good morning. Today I want to look at why so many city-centre markets have shrunk over the past twenty years, because the usual explanation is only part of the story. People tend to blame the supermarkets... but when my colleagues surveyed forty market towns, the strongest pattern was not price at all. It was parking. Councils removed free short-stay bays from the streets around the market square and replaced them with paid spaces, and trade fell within a year... The second pattern was opening hours. Most of these markets still close at four in the afternoon, which is exactly when the people who might buy from them are still at work... I am not saying supermarkets played no part. What I am saying is that the two things a council can actually change, parking and hours, turn out to matter more than the thing it cannot change, which is the price of milk in a national chain.” The question: “Which reasons does the speaker give for the decline of the city markets?” The options: (a) Supermarkets are the whole explanation; (b) Paid parking replaced free short-stay bays; (c) Traders refuse to open later under any conditions; (d) Markets close before most shoppers finish work; (e) The price of milk in national chains has risen. Below is what one student ticked.
The five options and what they scored
- Points kept Options (b) and (d) Option (b) — paid parking replacing free bays — and option (d) — markets closing before shoppers finish work — are the two patterns the speaker names as the survey's actual findings, so each tick earned its point.
- Point lost A third tick on option (c) "Traders refuse to open later under any conditions" sounds close to something the speaker said, but the speaker's actual point is the opposite: traders said they would open later, only if their neighbours did too. Ticking it anyway cost a point back.
- Left alone, correctly Options (a) and (e) The speaker explicitly rules out supermarkets as "the whole explanation", and mentions milk only as an example of something a council cannot change, not as a cause. Neither was ticked, so neither cost anything.
- What it adds up to Where the points went The two right ticks each earned a point, and the third, wrong tick took one back — stopping at two ticks would have kept both.
The two reasons the speaker actually gives
Paid parking replaced the free short-stay bays around the market square, and most of these markets still close at four in the afternoon, before the people who might buy from them finish work.
Strategy tip: The question asks for the speaker's reasons, not for everything in the talk that sounds plausible. An option can reuse a real detail from the recording and still answer a question the speaker never raised.
The point lost here wasn't a reason the student failed to hear — both real reasons were caught. It was a third tick, added on a hunch, on an option built to sound like the speaker's own words while arguing the opposite.
Practising here
See exactly which ticks scored, and which cost you
The timing matches the exam screen, and the review after you check explains every option, not just the ones you got wrong.
Seven seconds, then one play
The countdown runs, the recording plays once, and the question and every option stay on screen throughout. After you check your answer you can replay the recording as often as you like.
Scored the way Pearson does
We score the way Pearson does — +1 for each right tick, −1 for each wrong one, never below 0 — and the review says why each option was right or wrong.
Every option marked in place
After you check, each option shows what it was: a correct option you ticked, a correct option you missed, an incorrect option you wrongly ticked, or an incorrect option you correctly left alone.
The reasoning behind every option
Each option carries its own explanation — not just whether it was right, but what in the talk makes it right or wrong — so a distractor that reused a real detail doesn't stay a mystery.
One tip, and every attempt kept
You get a single piece of advice about the ticks you actually got wrong, plus your score and your earlier attempts on the same talk, so you can tell whether you're still over-ticking or genuinely missing an option.
Common questions
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers, answered
How long do I get before the recording starts?
Seven seconds. The question and every option are already on screen, so use them to read the question first and then skim the options.
How many times does the recording play?
Once. It runs for 80 to 120 seconds and there is no replay in the exam, so our practice plays it once too — after you check your answer you can listen again as often as you like.
How many options are correct?
More than one, and the question always tells you so. There's no fixed number — read the question itself for how many it's asking for.
What happens if I tick an incorrect option?
It costs you a point, the same as a correct option earns you one. An option you leave alone never costs you anything, whether it was right or wrong.
Can my score go below zero?
No. Wrong ticks can only bring your score on the question down to zero, never below it.
Which score does this task count towards?
Listening only.
How many of these are in the test?
Two or three, depending on the test you get.
Try it with one play
Hear a talk once, tick every option you're sure of, and see exactly which ticks scored — and which one cost you a point you'd already earned.