PTE Core Highlight Incorrect Words
This task pairs a recording of 20 to 70 seconds with written text, and asks you to identify the words in the text that do not match what the speaker says. You will see 1 to 2 of these items. Two features of its scoring make it unlike anything else in the Listening section, and both should change how you work it.
At a glance
| Detail | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Items on your test | 1 to 2 |
| Recording length | 20 to 70 seconds |
| What you do | Identify the words in the written text that differ from the recording |
| Skills scored | Listening and Reading |
| Scoring method | Partial credit per word, with a point deducted for each word chosen incorrectly |
| Floor | Minimum score is zero for the item |
| Section time | 22 to 37 minutes for the whole Listening section |
The two things that make this task distinctive
It is the only Listening task scored on Listening and Reading. Every other Listening item is scored on Listening alone, or on Listening and Writing. Here the marks feed your Listening score and your Reading score, which makes it better value than its modest item count suggests.
It deducts marks. Pearson's line gives one point for each correct word and takes one point away for each incorrect word, with the item floored at zero. Only Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers shares that property in this section. Every other Listening task rewards attempting everything; this one punishes it.
Those two facts combine into the central rule: mark a word only when you are confident it differs. Marking words you are unsure about does not improve your expected score, it lowers it. Three confident correct marks beat six marks of which three are right, because the second nets zero.
The method
- Read the text before the audio starts. This matters more here than on any other Listening task. You cannot compare against text you have not read, and once the recording begins you will not have time to read and listen at once.
- Keep your eye moving with the voice. The comparison only works if you are looking at the word as it is spoken. Falling behind is the main cause of missed differences, and of false positives on the words you skipped past.
- Mark only clear mismatches, on the spot. When the written word and the spoken word are plainly different, mark it and keep going. Do not stop to reconsider; you will lose your place and the rest of the item with it.
- Do not mark on the strength of a doubt. If you are not sure whether the word matched, leave it. That is not caution costing you a mark, it is avoiding a deduction.
- If you lose your place, jump forward. Find the phrase the speaker is on now rather than trying to reconstruct what you missed. Missed words score zero; wrongly marked words score minus one.
- Do not review by re-reading afterwards. Without the audio, a second pass over the text tends to generate plausible-looking but unverified suspicions. Those are exactly the marks that cost you points.
Where the difficulty actually sits
The substituted words are usually chosen to be near misses rather than obvious swaps: a word that sounds similar, or one that fits the sentence just as well grammatically. That has two consequences.
First, you cannot rely on the text sounding wrong. A substitution that reads perfectly well is still a substitution, so you have to catch it by hearing the difference, not by noticing that the sentence is odd.
Second, reading ahead of the voice is risky. If your eye runs on and you fill in the words you expect, you will match the written text against your own prediction rather than against the audio. Staying exactly with the speaker is the whole technique.
How to practise it
Work items in the question bank and score yourself the way the test does: count your correct marks, subtract your incorrect ones, and floor at zero. Most people are startled the first time they do this, because a habit of marking anything suspicious can turn a respectable-looking attempt into a zero. Tracking the adjusted score is what breaks the habit.
A good drill outside the app is to follow along with a transcript of any recording while it plays, at natural speed, without pausing. The skill of keeping eye and ear synchronised is the transferable part, and it is the part that limits most people's score here. Use AI Coach to review items you found hard, and confirm your section pacing on a full practice test.
Related guides
- Listening: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers, the other Listening task with a deduction
- Listening: Fill in the Blanks, where you should always attempt every gap
- Select Missing Word