PTE Academic has quietly made some of the most significant changes we’ve seen in years — and if you’re planning to take the test from August 7th, 2025 onwards, these changes directly impact your Speaking score.
Two brand-new tasks —
Summarize Group Discussion and Respond to a Situation — are now part of the Speaking section. They’re designed to assess your ability to think, organise, and speak clearly in realistic situations. And they’re already catching many test-takers by surprise.
Let’s break down what makes them different, why they matter, and how to prepare for them properly.
Summarize Group Discussion: Listen, Structure, Speak
In this task, you’ll hear a 2–3 minute audio recording of a group discussion. Your job is to summarize what was said — not just listing facts, but capturing the different perspectives and main ideas that came up. You’ll then have 2 minutes to speak your summary.
The challenge? It’s not just a memory test. You need to listen actively, identify key arguments, and report them back in a coherent way. This task rewards those who can quickly process spoken language and communicate a summary that is both accurate and well-structured.
One of the best ways to approach this task is to get comfortable with a clear note-taking and speaking structure. For example, many of our students use a simple frame like:
- “The discussion focused on [main topic]. Speaker A believed that…, while Speaker B argued…, and Speaker C suggested…. In the end, they [agreed/disagreed/raised further questions].”
Of course, this isn’t about memorising a rigid template — that’s not effective. But by practising structured responses and learning useful reporting phrases, you’ll become far more fluent and confident when summarising unfamiliar content.
Respond to a Situation: Register, Tone, and First-Person Response
This task presents you with a voicemail or short message and asks you to respond. You’ll get 10 seconds to prepare and then 60 seconds to speak.
The prompt might ask for a wide range of responses — such as advice, opinions, requests, apologies, or simply an appropriate reply to a situation. The key is to understand the function of the communication and respond accordingly — always in the first person, as if you are directly involved.
Tone and register are absolutely essential here. For example, if you’re responding to your professor or tutor, you’ll need a more formal and respectful tone. If the message is from a classmate, a more casual style may be appropriate. Misjudging the tone — too casual in formal situations or too stiff in informal ones — can hurt your score.
A strong response might follow a simple, effective structure:
- Acknowledgement: “Hi Jamie, thanks for your message.”
- Empathy or clarification: “Sorry to hear about the timetable clash…”
- Purposeful response: “What I’d suggest is contacting the course coordinator…”
- Closing: “Let me know if that works — happy to help.”
All of this must feel natural, relevant to the scenario, and spoken confidently in your own words.