PTE Academic · Speaking
PTE Re-tell Lecture
You hear a lecture once. Then you have forty seconds to re-tell it.
A short academic lecture plays, and you may take notes on paper while you listen — you are expected to. Then you say what it was about, in your own words. The words matter: this is a re-telling, not a recitation — say what the lecture was about, not what it said word for word.
How the task works
Three moments, and the first one decides the rest
The lecture plays once and cannot be replayed. What you can say afterwards is almost entirely decided by what you wrote down while it was playing.
Listen and take notes
Write ideas, not sentences. Two or three words per idea is enough, and the shape of the lecture — the main claim, the reasons under it, the conclusion — is worth more than any single fact. You will not have time to read long notes.
Plan your answer
Ten seconds is not time to write anything new. Use it to number your notes: what you will say first, what comes in the middle, and how you will finish.
Speak
The recording starts by itself. Open with what the lecture was about, give the main points in order, and keep one sentence for the conclusion. Three seconds of silence close the recording, so start straight away, even slowly.
How Pearson scores it
Three things are marked, not one
Your answer is not simply right or wrong. The computer marks three things at the same time, and in the live test a person also reviews the Content mark, so you can cover every idea and still lose marks elsewhere.
Content
How much of the lecture you actually re-tell: the main claim, the points that support it, and the conclusion. Meaning is what counts — a point said with a small mistake still earns its mark if the idea is clear. Naming a detail while missing the main claim earns far less than the other way round.
Oral Fluency
How smoothly you speak: an even speed, whole phrases, no long pauses and no "um". Reading your notes word by word shows up here, and so does running out of time in the middle of a sentence.
Pronunciation
How easy you are to understand. You do not need a British or an American accent. You need sounds and word stress that a listener can follow without effort.
Repeating the lecturer's sentences does not simply fail to earn extra marks — the score guide holds a verbatim answer to the lower Content bands, however accurate it is, because this task asks you to re-tell rather than to reproduce. Say the same ideas in different words, even plainer ones.
What usually goes wrong
Where students lose marks
Notes that are whole sentences
Writing full sentences means you stop listening while you write, and then you cannot read them fast enough to speak from. Write the idea in two words and move on.
You never reach the ending
Re-telling the first thirty seconds in careful detail leaves the conclusion unsaid, and the conclusion is usually the point the whole lecture was building towards. Plan to finish.
Borrowing the lecturer's words
Whole phrases taken from the lecture cost you Content marks, not gain them. If the lecturer said "the difference is largest at night", say "the gap is biggest after dark".
Freezing on one unfamiliar term
One word you did not catch is not worth the pause it causes. Describe it — "the effect he mentioned", "that process" — and keep going. Silence costs more than an approximation.
A worked example
One lecture, and what a good answer says
Here is how a lecture from our practice opens: “Cities are consistently warmer than the countryside around them, and the difference is largest at night. This is the urban heat island effect. So where does the extra heat come from? There are two main causes. The first is the materials…” It runs for a little over a minute in all. Decide what you would say in forty seconds, then compare with the list below — it covers the whole lecture, not only the part quoted here.
What a good answer says
- Main idea Cities are warmer than their surroundings Cities are consistently warmer than the surrounding countryside, and the gap is widest at night: the urban heat island effect.
- Supporting point Materials store and release heat Asphalt and concrete absorb sunlight during the day and release it slowly after dark, unlike soil and vegetation.
- Supporting point City shape traps heat Tall buildings close together trap heat, and a narrow street radiates far less warmth back to the sky than open ground.
- Detail A smaller source: our own heat Vehicles, air conditioning and industry add some heat directly, a smaller third source.
- Detail Three to five degrees at night Large cities typically measure a night-time difference of three to five degrees, and more in extreme conditions.
- Supporting point Warm nights are what harm health Heat deaths rise sharply when night-time temperatures stop falling, because the body needs cool nights to recover.
- Conclusion Change surfaces, not just buildings The most effective responses change surfaces and shade, such as reflective roofs, street trees and parks, rather than cooling individual buildings, which pushes heat into the street.
What a full answer sounds like
The lecture is about why cities are hotter than the areas around them, especially at night. It gives two main reasons. Building materials like concrete soak up heat during the day and let it out slowly at night. And the shape of a city matters, because tall buildings packed together hold heat in. Traffic and air conditioning add a little more. The result can be several degrees of extra warmth at night, which is the dangerous part, because people need cool nights to recover. So the speaker argues the best fixes are shade, trees and reflective surfaces rather than cooling buildings one by one.
Strategy tip: This lecture goes cause, cause, consequence, fix. Note the two main causes as two words, then the health danger, and save your last sentence for the fix: change surfaces and shade, not single buildings. That fix is the point the lecture builds towards.
Notice two things about that answer. It names the main claim in the first sentence, then the two causes, then the danger and the fix — the shape of the lecture, not the order of its details. And it shares almost no phrasing with the lecture itself. That is what re-telling means here.
Practising here
Feedback that tells you why, not just a number
You listen once and record your answer with the same clock as the exam. Then you find out which ideas you covered, which you missed, and what to try on the next lecture.
The same clock as the exam
The lecture plays once, ten seconds to prepare, a recording that starts by itself, and the silence that ends your answer — the same rules the test uses. Take your notes on paper, as you will on the day.
Marked the way the exam marks it
You get a separate result for each thing we mark, not one number, so you can see which one is holding your score down.
Every idea, named
After you speak, you see the lecture's ideas one by one — the main claim, the points under it, the conclusion — marked as covered or missed.
An example answer for every lecture
A full answer written for that lecture and fitted into forty seconds, in words that are deliberately not the lecturer's, so you can hear what a re-telling sounds like.
One tip you can use next time
A short piece of advice about how to listen and speak on the next lecture — not your score again in different words.
Common questions
Re-tell Lecture, answered
How long is the lecture, and how long do I speak?
The lecture runs for up to 90 seconds and plays once. You then get about 10 seconds to prepare and 40 seconds to speak. The recording starts by itself and cannot be paused or repeated.
Can I take notes?
Yes — you are given an erasable noteboard in the exam, and you should use it. Write ideas rather than sentences: two or three words each, arranged so you can see the shape of the lecture at a glance. Here you take notes on paper too, which is why there is no notes box on the screen.
What if I miss part of the lecture?
Keep listening. A missing detail costs you less than losing the thread does. Re-tell what you did follow, in order, and finish with the conclusion — a shorter answer that has a beginning, a middle and an end scores better than a longer one that stops halfway.
Does repeating the lecturer's words help?
No. The score guide names verbatim repetition against you at the lower Content bands, because the task is to re-tell rather than to reproduce. Say the same idea in your own words, even simpler ones — "the gap is biggest after dark" is worth more than the lecturer's own sentence.
How is Re-tell Lecture scored?
By computer, on three things: Content, Oral Fluency and Pronunciation, and in the live test a person also reviews the Content mark. One lecture is not pass or fail — you can earn part of the marks, and this task counts towards both your Listening and your Speaking scores.
What are the lectures about?
Academic subjects, explained the way a university lecture would: environmental science, history, psychology, economics, archaeology, public health, astronomy, linguistics and so on. You are never expected to know the subject — everything you need is said in the lecture.
Do I need to say every detail?
No, and trying to costs you. Forty seconds is short. Spend them on the main claim, the points that support it and the conclusion; a number or a name is worth saying only if it is still true that you will reach the ending.
How do I practise Re-tell Lecture here?
Sign in, open Re-tell Lecture and record a real answer with the exam clock running. You get the ideas you covered, the ideas you missed, an example answer for that lecture, and one tip to use next time.
Try it with the real clock
Listen once, take notes on paper, and record one answer. See which ideas you got, which you missed, and take the tip into the next lecture.