Retell Lecture Practice Questions

About Retell Lecture

Retell Lecture plays an academic lecture once, and you give a connected spoken account of what you heard. This needs a clear account built on the lecture's actual ideas, not a generic speech wrapped around a few keywords.

Exam

PTE Academic only

Lecture

Up to 90 seconds, plays once

Prep time

10 seconds

Answer time

40 seconds

Retell Lecture plays a lecture once, sometimes with a supporting image, and asks you to give a connected spoken account of what you heard. Only Summarize Group Discussion asks you to listen for longer, and Retell Lecture rewards a clear account built on the lecture's real content, not a generic response wrapped around a few remembered keywords.

What Retell Lecture tests

A recorded lecture, up to 90 seconds long, plays once. Pearson describes the prompt as audio or video, and it may come with an image relevant to the topic. After the recording ends, you get preparation time, then speak, retelling the lecture's content in your own words.

PTE Academic includes 2 to 3 Retell Lecture items. Pearson's own tip for this task is that you have 3 seconds before the recording starts to look quickly at the image.

In our experience, a weak retelling is rarely a sign that the topic itself was too advanced. More often it reflects how the notes were taken, or how they were reorganised — or not reorganised — into a spoken order during the short preparation window.

Format and timing

The lecture plays once, for up to 90 seconds. You then get 10 seconds to prepare before the microphone opens, and 40 seconds to speak.

• Before the audio: 3 seconds (Pearson's tip: use them to look at the image)
• Lecture length: up to 90 seconds, plays once
• Preparation time: 10 seconds
• Answer time: 40 seconds
• Items per test: 2-3

How Retell Lecture is scored

Retell Lecture reports to both Listening and Speaking, scored on Content (out of 6), Pronunciation (out of 5) and Oral Fluency (out of 5). As with other content-heavy speaking tasks, Content is reviewed by a human expert before your score is finalised.

Pearson gives no credit at all for a response that is missing, off-topic, or clearly unoriginal — a memorised general answer that does not reflect the specific lecture played is the kind of response that risks falling into those categories. Treat the task as a test of listening comprehension, not of a rehearsed script.

Because Content, Pronunciation and Oral Fluency are scored separately, a candidate who recalls only part of the lecture but delivers that part clearly and fluently can still outperform one who recalls more but delivers it hesitantly with long pauses between points.

A step-by-step approach

With only one playback, your note-taking during listening is, in our view, the part of this task that most rewards practice.

• If an image appears, follow Pearson's tip and use the 3 seconds before the audio starts to note its subject — this primes you for the topic.
• While listening, note the main topic, the speaker's central claim, and the order in which supporting points are introduced.
• Use the 10-second preparation window to organise your notes into a speaking order, not to write more notes.
• Open your response by stating the lecture's topic and main point in one sentence.
• Work through your notes in the order the lecture presented them, connecting ideas with linking language rather than listing disconnected facts.

A structure for your retelling

A workable structure for Retell Lecture has three parts: an opening that states the topic and main claim, a middle that develops two or three supporting points in the lecture's own order, and a short closing that restates the overall conclusion or implication.

Use signalling language throughout so the listener can follow your structure without seeing your notes: 'The lecture discusses...', 'The speaker's main point is that...', 'This is supported by...', 'A further point raised is...', and 'Overall, the lecture concludes that...'.

Resist the temptation to fill 40 seconds with everything you half-remember. In our view, a shorter, accurate account of the lecture's real structure is a safer bet than a longer one padded with vague or invented detail, because Content is about what the lecture actually said.

Worked example

Example (written by LexiPTE) — lecture summary (as it might be heard): a professor explains that many cities are replacing traditional street lighting with LED systems. The lecture states two main benefits: LEDs use significantly less electricity than older sodium lamps, and they can be dimmed automatically overnight when streets are quiet. The lecture notes one drawback: the light LEDs produce can disrupt nocturnal wildlife more than older, warmer-toned lighting.

A strong 40-second retelling: "This lecture is about cities switching their street lighting from traditional sodium lamps to LED systems. The speaker gives two main benefits: LEDs use much less electricity, and they can be automatically dimmed late at night when fewer people are on the streets. However, the lecture also raises a drawback — LED light can disturb nocturnal wildlife more than the warmer light older lamps produced. Overall, the speaker presents LED lighting as an efficient option with an environmental trade-off that cities still need to manage."

This retelling states the topic first, covers both benefits and the drawback in the lecture's own order, and closes with a one-sentence overall takeaway rather than simply stopping after the last point.

Strategies that work

Retell Lecture rewards structured listening more than vocabulary range, so train the specific skill of note-taking under a single playback.

• Practise note-taking with symbols and abbreviations rather than full words, so you can capture more of the structure in the time available.
• After each practice lecture, check your notes against a transcript to see what kind of information you tend to miss.
• Practise organising notes into a speaking order within 10 seconds — this is a distinct skill from note-taking itself.
• Record your retellings and check whether your account follows the lecture's actual order of ideas, not just the order you happened to remember them.

Common mistakes

Weak Retell Lecture responses tend to fail on structure and accuracy rather than on pronunciation.

• Retelling a string of isolated keywords instead of the lecture's connected argument.
• Running out of things to say partway through the 40 seconds because the preparation time was spent taking more notes instead of organising existing ones.
• Giving a generic, lecture-independent answer that does not reflect what was actually said, which risks scoring as unoriginal.
• Focusing only on the first point mentioned and forgetting the lecture's later, equally important points.

A short practice plan

Build listening-for-structure and organised retelling as two separate skills before combining them under time pressure.

• Week 1: listen to short academic talks (60-90 seconds) once each, and write structured notes without speaking yet.
• Week 2: give untimed spoken retellings from your notes, checking coverage of the topic, main claim and supporting points against a transcript.
• Week 3: add the timing constraints — one playback, 10 seconds to prepare, 40 seconds to speak — and record yourself.
• Ongoing: build a personal glossary of academic linking phrases you can insert automatically, so the language itself never slows you down mid-retelling.