# PTE Re-tell Lecture: scoring, examples and practice

PTE Re-tell Lecture plays a lecture of up to 90 seconds, gives you 10 seconds to prepare and 40 seconds to retell it. Content is human-reviewed, and it counts for both listening and speaking.

## The short answer

Re-tell Lecture plays a lecture of up to 90 seconds, gives you 10 seconds to prepare, then records you for 40 seconds. There are 2 to 3 in a test and they count for both Listening and Speaking. Content is scored by AI with a human expert review, so what matters is the ideas you bring back and how they connect, not how many words you can say in 40 seconds.

## Key facts

- **Items per test:** 2-3
- **Prompt length:** Up to 90 seconds
- **Preparation:** 10 seconds
- **Response time:** 40 seconds
- **Skills scored:** Listening and speaking

*Re-tell Lecture timing: a lecture of up to 90 seconds, 10 seconds to prepare, then 40 seconds to speak.*

| Stage | Time |
| --- | --- |
| Lecture plays | up to 90 sec |
| Prepare | 10 sec |
| You speak | 40 sec |

*The 10 seconds are for choosing what to say first, not for writing a script.*

Timings and scoring rules come from Pearson's task pages and the July 2025 Score Guide, checked 28 September 2026.

## How it's scored

Content rewards the main points of the lecture, in a sensible order, with the relationships between them made clear. Responses that list disconnected fragments sit in the lower bands even when the fragments are accurate.

Like the other summary tasks, the content score goes through a human expert review before it is final. Oral fluency and pronunciation are scored by AI on what you actually said.

> 40 seconds is about 100 words for most speakers. That is three or four sentences: the speaker's topic, two supporting points, and the conclusion.

## Re-tell Lecture examples

Worked examples written for this page. Answer each one before you open the model response: memorizing a response is scored as an irrelevant answer in the real test.

**Example 1 -- a lecture with a clear structure**

Recording (played once), transcript:

> Cities across Europe are planting street trees at a rate we have not seen since the 1970s, and there are two reasons for it. The first is heat. A street with a closed tree canopy can run four to six degrees cooler on a summer afternoon than the same street without one. The second is water. Leaves and root systems hold back part of a downpour that would otherwise arrive at the drains all at once. There is a catch, though. Species that survive pollution and compacted soil are a short list, and a tree that dies in its third summer has cooled nothing. That is why the planting that works is planned street by street, not by the thousand.

Prompt: Listen once, take notes, then re-tell the lecture in 40 seconds.

10 seconds to prepare, then 40 seconds to speak.

Model response: "The lecture is about why cities are planting street trees. The speaker gives two reasons: trees lower summer temperatures in built-up areas, and they absorb some of the water that would otherwise flood drains. She notes that the benefit depends on choosing species that survive pollution, and concludes that planting works best when it is planned street by street."

Why it scores: Topic, two supporting points, a limitation and the conclusion. The connectors ("two reasons", "she notes", "concludes") are what make the ideas read as connected rather than listed.

**Example 2 -- when you miss the middle**

Recording (played once), transcript:

> Office design has changed more in the last five years than in the twenty before it. Start with the desks. A firm that once kept one desk per employee now keeps six for every ten, and books the rest. That ratio came out of attendance data most companies only started collecting in 2021, and it varies by department: finance teams cluster on Tuesdays, engineering spreads across the week. The floor space that comes back gets turned into rooms for meetings, because the meeting is the thing people now travel in for. The office is becoming a place you go to be with other people, not a place you go to work alone.

Prompt: Listen once. If you lose the middle, re-tell what you have.

10 seconds to prepare, then 40 seconds to speak.

Model response: "The lecture looks at how remote work changed office design. The speaker describes companies reducing desk space, and ends by arguing that offices are becoming places for meetings rather than daily work."

Why it scores: Two accurate ideas with a clear link score better than four half-remembered ones. Do not invent the middle: invented content is still judged against the lecture.

**Example 3 -- a lecture with data**

Recording (played once), transcript:

> The study I want to describe took ninety students and gave them a list of forty unrelated words to learn at nine in the morning. Half were tested twelve hours later, that same evening. The other half learned the list in the evening, slept, and were tested twelve hours later in the morning. The sleep group recalled about forty percent more of the list. The interval was identical, so the difference is not simply forgetting over time. Sleep appears to do something active: it consolidates what you learned rather than merely resting the brain.

Prompt: Listen once, then re-tell it. Report the direction of the result if you lose the number.

10 seconds to prepare, then 40 seconds to speak.

Model response: "The speaker describes a study on sleep and memory. Participants who slept a full night recalled clearly more of the word list than those who stayed awake, and the speaker uses this to argue that sleep helps fix memories rather than simply resting the brain."

Why it scores: If you did not catch the exact figure, describe the direction of the result instead. A wrong number is worse than a correct comparison.

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## Common mistakes

| What costs marks | Do this instead |
| --- | --- |
| Writing full sentences during the lecture. | Note only nouns and numbers: topic, two or three key terms, the conclusion. Your pen competes with your ears. |
| Retelling the first 20 seconds in detail and stopping. | Aim for the arc. The conclusion is usually worth more content credit than the opening. |
| Padding with phrases like "the speaker talks about many things". | Filler adds no content and eats the 40 seconds. Go straight to the topic in the first sentence. |
| Guessing numbers. | Describe the relationship instead: "clearly more", "about twice as many". |

**Know the score you are aiming at** Put a target into the PTE score calculator to see the visa band it reaches, the points it is worth, and how far off you are. [Open the PTE score calculator](/pte/score-calculator)

## How to practice

1. Listen to a 90-second clip, take notes in under eight words, and retell it from the notes only.
2. Practice a fixed shape: topic sentence, two points, conclusion. It fits 40 seconds without rushing.
3. Use lectures on unfamiliar topics. The task is testing listening, not your background knowledge.
4. Record and check whether a listener who had not heard the lecture would understand your summary.

## Common questions

### How long is the lecture in PTE Re-tell Lecture?

Up to 90 seconds. You then get 10 seconds to prepare and 40 seconds to answer.

### Can I take notes during Re-tell Lecture?

Yes, and you should, but keep them to key words. Writing sentences costs you the parts of the lecture you are not hearing.

### How many Re-tell Lecture questions are there?

2 to 3 in a test.

### Does Re-tell Lecture count for listening?

Yes, it is scored for both listening and speaking.

**Sources**
- [Pearson: PTE Academic Speaking & Writing task types (checked 28 September 2026)](https://www.pearsonpte.com/pte-academic/test-format/speaking-writing)
- [Pearson: PTE Academic Test Taker Score Guide, July 2025 (PDF)](https://www.pearsonpte.com/ctf-assets/yqwtwibiobs4/WUcBAMkYCC9Dj5vs2HfVA/941d88d07ba7c2a5007f7ce1b18eedbf/Score_Guide__Test_Taker__-_PTE_Academic_-_July_2025__web_.pdf)

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