Topic practice should prepare you to analyse unfamiliar questions. These prompts are original exercises, not predictions of future PTE Academic content.
Pearson currently asks for a 200 to 300 word argumentative essay in 20 minutes. Pearson Academic Speaking & Writing format
Five original topics
- Universities should require every student to complete a community project. To what extent do you agree?
- Public transport should be free in large cities. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages.
- Employers increasingly use online training. Does it offer more benefits than classroom training?
- Some people believe governments should prioritise preventing illness, while others argue that treating existing illness should come first. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
- Some people prefer repairing old products, while others replace them. Which approach is better for consumers and society?
Match the plan to the instruction. For advantages and disadvantages, develop one clear benefit and one clear drawback. For competing views, explain each side and state your opinion. For a judgement prompt, choose a position and develop two distinct reasons.
Plan for topic 3
- Position: online training has more benefits when interaction is designed well.
- Reason 1: flexible access across locations and shifts.
- Reason 2: consistent updates and reusable demonstrations.
- Limitation: isolation and weak practical feedback.
- Response: live discussion and supervised practice.
Complete sample answer
Online training has become common because organisations can deliver the same material to employees in different places. Although classroom instruction remains valuable for practical tasks and immediate discussion, online training offers greater overall benefits when courses include opportunities for interaction. It can widen access without removing every form of personal support. Its strongest advantage is flexibility. Employees can complete modules around shifts and revisit difficult sections instead of relying on notes from one session. This is especially useful for organisations with regional offices, where bringing every worker to one location would require travel, accommodation and lost working time. Digital courses can also be updated centrally, helping staff receive the same guidance when procedures change. However, online delivery can become passive. A worker may click through slides without understanding how to apply the information, and technical subjects may require equipment or direct observation. Employers should therefore combine self-paced modules with live questions, short application tasks and supervised practice. This blended approach keeps the accessibility of online learning while providing feedback where mistakes matter. Overall, online training is more flexible and easier to maintain than classroom-only instruction. Its benefits outweigh its limitations when employers treat it as active learning and preserve face-to-face support for practical skills.
Word count: 204. The answer is within the current 200 to 300 word range.
The response answers the comparison, develops two benefits, acknowledges the strongest drawback and proposes a relevant condition. It does not reuse a universal introduction.
Practise transfer, not prediction
Take one argument pattern and apply it to a different subject. A cost-benefit frame can examine public transport, university technology or environmental regulation. For each topic, write one benefit, one cost, one affected group and one condition that changes the outcome.
This creates reusable reasoning without memorising essays. If a prepared example does not directly support the prompt, leave it out. Relevance matters more than forcing familiar material into the answer.
For paragraph design, read PTE Academic Essay Structure. Choose another prompt above and practise in the Academic Write Essay section.
