Not the Pearson Test of English alone, the Writing part in all English proficiency tests is pretty challenging besides the Speaking one. Most students are afraid of it because it requires a wide range of knowledge in different fields to be able to deal with a variety of topics on our test day.
In this strategy article, we will be guiding PTE takers step-by-step to deal with all topic types in Part 1: Write Essay. Even though this article is written in a detailed way, the Academic team at TADE Hub only used simple words for your understanding. However, we also need your dedication to immerse yourself in the article, read it thoroughly and apply it to practice.
If you are looking for templates, this article is NOT for you. We have been supporting over 20,000 students in taking both the PTE Academic and Duolingo English Test, and we have NEVER built any templates because it doesn’t align with our long-term goal to transform students’ lives. We aim to transform students’ lives by helping them advance their actual skills so they are able to face all questions on test day. Templates are only applied to some specific questions, so why should we devote our time to remembering templates but not advancing our skills to face all topics successfully?
If you believe in yourself. If you believe that you can improve and transform yourself to be better, this article is for you by firstly learning how to deal with all possible questions in Part 1: Write Essay.
Fundamental information
Task: Write a 200-300 word essay about a given topic
Prompt length: 2-3 sentences
Timer: 20 minutes
Frequency: 1-2 questions
Skills assessed: Writing
The Pearson Test of English says that Part 1: Write Essay appears from 1 to 2 times during a PTE Academic test, but we believe it’s only possible to appear one time because if we have two Write Essay questions, it takes 40 minutes, which means the other question types in Part 1: Speaking & Writing only have 27 minutes left as we have from 54 to 67 minutes for all questions.
All topic types
There are three topic types that PTE takers should pay close attention to including Argument, Problem-Solution, and Opinion types. One of these three topic types will appear in your test, so make sure that you practice all types properly. While reading this article strategy, PTE takers can visit the PTE Practice Platform from time to time to practice as we have thousands of practice questions, including all topic types in Part 1: Write Essay.
cre: Pearson
We have three sample questions as follows that we will be applying our strategy to answer to help students have a better understanding of how to deal with each topic type perfectly.
Argument type: Animals shouldn’t be used for medical research under any circumstances.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? Provide reasons and/or examples to support your ideas.
Problem-Solution type: Stress has emerged as a significant problem in numerous countries worldwide. Why does it happen and what we can do to solve this issue?
Opinion type: Tobacco, mainly in the form of cigarettes, is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. Over a billion adults legally smoke tobacco every day. The long-term health costs are high – for smokers themselves, and for the wider community in terms of health care costs and lost productivity. Do governments have a legitimate role to legislate to protect citizens from the harmful effects of their own decisions to smoke, or are such decisions up to the individual?
All of these three questions are FREE on the PTE Practice Platform, you can try to answer by yourself later. In this article, let’s explore the Argument type first, and we will be applying it to other topic types in other articles.
A unique step-by-step strategy
This unique strategy includes three simple steps that PTE takers can apply to all topic types. Within 20 minutes, we will be going through Step 1: Read, Brainstorm and Take notes, Step 2: Lay out your structure, and Step 3: Double-check your essay.
This is your unique and effective strategy to aim for the highest score we completely understand how this question is scored, so we designed this strategy to make it happen. There are six grading elements: Content, Form, Grammar (Spelling), Vocabulary, Coherence, and Linguistic Range.
Check details on how we offer instantly detailed feedback for all question types here.
Step 1. Read, Brainstorm and Take notes
Recommended timer: 5 minutes
1.1. Step one: Read the question carefully
Not only Part 1: Write Essay, we need to read questions carefully whenever we face Speaking or Writing questions in order to completely comprehend them and deliver a relevant answer.
Again, this is our Sample question – Question number on the PTE Practice Platform – TADE Hub.
“Animals shouldn’t be used for medical research under any circumstances.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? Provide reasons and/or examples to support your ideas.
cre: TADE Hub
In this step, we recommend that PTE takers spend around two (02) minutes to read and comprehend the question. It’s truly crucial to understand the question completely, so we are able to brainstorm ideas and take notes to answer the question later. If students can read and understand a question in less than one minute, it’s super cool. If students cannot, they can spend up to two minutes as we already designed the timer for each step. No worries, you only need to follow our guides and apply them to practice and see your improvement.
If you are ready, let’s spend up to two minutes reading and understanding the question.
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Our sample question is not that difficult to comprehend right? If you haven’t created your FREE account, let’s do it so you can practice this question right on the PTE Practice Platform and receive instantly detailed feedback evaluating your answer based on the same grading elements that Pearson uses to assess your skill.
The key point of this question asks how much you agree with this statement: Animals shouldn’t be used for medical research under any circumstances.
If PTE takers face a challenging question that is a bit over their heads, they can take notes on words that they know and make an assumption about the key point. We will be offering some ways that students can apply to all cases if unfortunately, they face a challenging question.
1.2. Step two: Brainstorm and Take notes
In this step, we have three minutes to Brainstorm and Take notes on what content we should deliver our answers. Regardless of the topic type, we always have three parts in every essay answer: Opening – Body (always two supporting points) – Ending.
Brainstorming and Taking notes need to happen at the same time. In other words, PTE needs to take notes while brainstorming. Brainstorming is a technique of imagining how we should answer the question and taking notes allows us to write down some important phrases and ideas from our imagination so we are able to use them later (avoid forgetting).
Here is how we apply our sample question in three different parts.
a. Opening: As it is the Argument question type we need to state it clearly whether we support the statement or not. It’s okay if you are neutral to the statement. The Coherence grading element evaluates how well students move from one point to another. Thus, we also need to take notes on phrases that connect to the Body. As a result, the following is what we take notes.
Completely agree with the statement
Agree on a couple of crucial reasons
b. Body: In all writing topics, we need at least two supporting points to prove our main idea in the Opening that we agree (or disagree or neutral) with the statement. However, if PTE takers believe in their ability, they should deliver three supporting ideas to increase their chances of getting higher scores.
Supporting point 1: ethical implications because animals endure pain so much in medical research.
Supporting point 2: unreliable results owing to important biological differences between species.
c. Ending: In this part, we simply state our opinion again as we do for the Opening. So think of how to paraphrase the Opening part, which is easier and very effective. Moreover, we also need to take notes on how to start the Ending part, and it could be as follows.
To make the long story short, or All in all, etc
It’s done here, we already have basic ideas to write the answer and some important phrases to make our writing coherent. Let’s move on to Step 2: Lay out your structure.
Step 2. Lay out your structure
Recommended timer: 12 minutes
2.1. Give a general answer – Opening
After the previous step, we have fundamental ideas on how to write the Opening. For now, we only need to connect all points together and write a complete Opening response.
To start your writing, there is a bunch of ways to do so.
As far as I’m concerned…
In the age of…
Speaking of…
Regrading…
In term of…
When it comes to…
In my humble position…
Before checking our sample answers, please take your time to write it yourself first.
If you already get it done, let’s check our samples. We have the advanced and basic answers for your study.
cre: TADE Hub
It depends on your English level to write similar to either the Basic or the Advanced openings. Regardless of both ways, we need to include three parts in your opening.
The red words: We already shared some ways to start your writing above. It’s easy and simple, PTE takers need to pick what is suitable to the question to use.
The orange words: If it’s the Argument type, we need to clearly state whether we agree, disagree (or neutral) with the statement. DO NOT MISS THIS PART.
The blue words: This is used to connect with the Body and make your writing more coherent, so ensure that you never forget it. We have some recommendations for using:
A number of important reasons;
A myriad of essential points;
A couple of critical ideas;
Time management and word count: We spend around 2 minutes delivering this Opening make sure to write at least 25 words because your strategy is to write at least 25 words for the Opening, 25 words for the Ending, and the rest around 150 words for the Body.
2.2. Provide reasons to support your idea – Body
This is the major part of our writing – delivering at least two supporting points to back up your answer in the Opening. Luckily enough, we already have two Supporting points brainstormed in the previous step, so our job here is to make the key points sound engaging and convincing.
The following are the two supporting points and two complete paragraphs proving the points.
Supporting point 1:ethical implications because animals endure pain so much in medical research.
To get started, while it is true that animal experimentation has led to significant medical breakthroughs, such as the development of vaccines and life-saving treatments, it is essential to consider the ethical implications. Many animals endure pain and suffering in laboratory settings, raising questions about the morality of using living beings for human benefit. For instance, primates subjected to experiments may experience physical and psychological distress, challenging the notion of ethical treatment of animals.
Supporting point 2: unreliable results owing to important biological differences between species.
Additionally, the extrapolation of results from animal studies to humans is often unreliableowing to fundamental biological differences between species. Namely, drugs that show promising results in animal trials may fail to produce the same effects in humans, leading to wasted resources and potential harm. Thus, relying solely on animal models for medical research may hinder scientific progress rather than facilitate it.
Explanation of all highlighted colour words
Blue words: Linking words (transition words) that we used to start the paragraphs or connect sentences with sentences to make an organised writing.
Red words: They are our key supporting points.
Orange words: They are reasons why we have shared our supporting points in addition to black words that we applied to create a stronger and more convincing answer.
Do you believe that you could write such two paragraphs in around eight (08) minutes (why eight minutes? We will explain later)? If you can, that’s wonderful. If you cannot yet, we will be guiding you to successfully write similar paragraphs as we utterly believe your skills can be improved with enough strategic practice every day.
Here is your secret: We do it by expanding our answers and using linking words to connect bullet points with bullet points and sentences with sentences.
a. Expanding your answers
There are three ways to expand answers: Elaborate answers, Share opinions, and Give examples.
Elaborate answers: Elaborate means we give more details to our answers as long as detailed information is related to the answer (or the supporting point that we are proving). In the samples of two supporting points, we elaborated a lot, especially the second one we gave more information about “biological differences between species” and came up to a conclusion later.
Share opinion: There is no sharing opinion yet in the two samples of supporting points. PTE takers may use this tip more in the other topic types: Problem-Solving and Opinion. Simply put, we share our perspectives concerning a particular topic, problem, solution, and so on.
Give examples: In Supporting Point 1, the last sentence is an example that we used to prove our point. As far as we can tell, using examples in our writing or speaking answers is the major element in aiming for the highest score possible.
Admittedly, it’s not easy to use any above tips. Everything needs practice aside from advancing your General English skills every single day. Nevertheless, to make it a bit easier, PTE takers can try to combine two tips in one paragraph like the Supporting Point 1 that we elaborated on and gave a strong example to justify our point.
b. Using linking words
Some students call linking words transition words. Whatever name you prefer to call, we use them to deliver a logically coherent answer by connecting key points, sentences, and paragraphs together.
There are sixteen linking-word categories in the PTE Practice Platform that you can access at any time with your Premium account.
cre: TADE Hub
If you notice, all the Blue words that we used in our sample answers can be found in these lists. To illustrate, the word “additionally” is used at the beginning of Supporting Point 2 in the Addition category. If words are in the same category, we can use any of them for the same purpose.
To smoothly apply linking words in our Writing and Speaking answers is not easy! We need to devote our time and effort to practicing and learning from others, especially the Sample Answers that users get after submitting their practice answers on the PTE Practice Platform.
cre: TADE Hub
The above is a sample answer to our question, students should thoroughly examine it, and compare it to your answer to learn new ideas, knowledge, vocabulary and so on. While practising on the PTE Practice Platform, if there are a lot of new ideas from a sample answer, students should try to rewrite the answer at least one more time and apply what they just studied from our sample answer into practice. We highlighted all collocations, idioms, phrasal verbs, linking words, and so on to support your PTE Academic Preparation.
Time management and word count: We have twelve (12) minutes in this step: Lay out your structure. We utilise the first two minutes for the Opening and the rest two minutes for the Ending, so we have around eight minutes left to deliver the Body. Of course, students can slightly adjust it to the question they are facing to have a more effective result. With two Supporting points, we have 136 words besides 26 words in the Opening (if we choose the Basic answer), so we totally have 162 words by this time.
2.3. Deliver a conclusion – Ending
Part 1: Write Essay requires students to write at least 200 words, so we need to have at least 38 words in this Ending part as we already had 162 words in the Opening and the Body.
We don’t think it’s a challenge. Instead, it’s super easy because we simply need to paraphrase our content in the Opening, add some more words if needed, and then finalise it. In other words, PTE takers have to state their opinion clearly one more time to close the writing. If you agree with the statement, state it again. If you disagree with the statement, make sure to confirm it again.
In our Brainstorming part, we have some ways to start the Ending part, such as To make the long story short and All in all.
Please pause your reading, go write the Ending by yourself and review our sample answer right below.
To make the long story short, while animal experimentation has yielded medical advances, ethical concerns demand reevaluation. Therefore, prioritizing alternative methods that balance scientific rigour and animal welfare plays a pivotal role. Minimizing animal suffering and prioritizing alternatives are essential for advancing medical research ethically.
“To make the long story short” is actually a linking word, and we have tons of other similar phrases that you can use to start your writing. Students can check them in the Summary category on the Linking Word page. The rest is just how we rewrite our perspective or paraphrase the Opening to concrete our idea.
It’s truly crucial to practice general English every day to advance your skills because it’s the most essential part to achieve your scores, learning tips and strategies is just secondary. Feel free to visit this article: “Guide to Enhance your Writing Skill” and commit yourself to practice.
Time management and word count: We have two minutes in this part to deliver our conclusion. The number of words is 45, which exceeded 38 words as needed. So, our whole essay has 207 words.
Step 3. Double-check your essay
Recommended timer: 3 minutes
Why is this part imperative? It’s super critical to help PTE takers minimize grammar, and spelling mistakes and change phrases or words if possible to create a more organised answer. Do you remember the grading elements in this question type including Grammar (Spelling) and Coherence? Yes, if there are mistakes but we don’t correct them, our scores will be deducted from Grammar and Coherence.
Not only Part 1: Write Essay, but also apply to other Writing question types, including Part 1: Summarize Written Text and Part 3: Summarize Spoken Text. If you learn strategies to upgrade the other two writing question scores, we will need to double-check your work as well.
There are two parts we can apply to all Writing question types for checking before submitting your answers.
3.1. Use appropriate punctuation
Most of the time, we use the comma “, “ and the full stop (period) “ . “, so we will be concentrating on these two types of punctuation.
a. The comma “ , “
We use it to pause within sentences or parts of sentences to deliver a clearer and more readable answer. There are three rules that we need to remember to use effectively.
Rule 1: Use a comma to separate a series of nouns, adjectives, or verbs.
In our sample answer, we do not have a series of nouns, adjectives, or verbs yet. So here is a new example for your study.
Example: We desire to pursue things that we have not done in the past, such as climbing mountains, boxing, or even diving into the ocean.
Rule 2: Put a comma before a FANBOYS when connecting two independent clauses.
FANBOYS stands for “For And Nor But Or Yet So”. Whenever we use any of these words, we need to put a comma before it to make our points clearer.
Example: To get started, while it is true that animal experimentation has led to significant medical breakthroughs, such as the development of vaccines and life-saving treatments, so it is essential to consider the ethical implications.
Rule 3: Put a comma after adverbs.
Adverts are truly vital when it comes to connecting sentences and sentences or emphasising some points after them.
Example: To make the long story short, while animal experimentation has yielded medical advances, ethical concerns demand reevaluation. Therefore, prioritizing alternative methods that balance scientific rigour and animal welfare plays a pivotal role.
Note: We just shared basic and top common rules for using commas. If you notice from our sample answers, we also applied the Reduced Relative Phrases, if you are interested in learning more about this, kindly share your need in the comment section, and our Academic team will be happy to offer a quality article to help your study.
b. The Full stop “ . “
The Full stop “ . “ is used to make the pause longer, show when a point is made, or end suggestions. Most of our sentences in the sample answers are ended when the points are made.
To make it easier to use full stops effectively, we should not write too long sentences because it requires a high level of English writing to lure others’ attention. Hence, it’s better to make it short with a maximum of two commas in one sentence.
3.2. Check grammar and spelling mistakes
After checking for appropriate punctuation, it’s time to do the same for grammar and spelling mistakes. Please remember that we only have three minutes to check punctuation, grammar, and spelling, so PTE takers need to do it simultaneously.
a. Grammar: It’s not that hard as we simply need to use the same tense following the question, except that we intend to use different tenses for different purposes. Consequently, pay close attention to your purposes in order to make the right adjustment.
b. Spelling: The only way is to read the whole answer thoroughly and make changes immediately when we see spelling mistakes.
Time management: We can no longer control the time after finishing our answer. We use the time left to check from the top to the bottom, and hopefully, we have enough time to check the whole answer within three minutes ideally.
Things to avoid
Here are cases in which test-takers will be given zero:
The response is NOT in English;
Test-takers write a very short or very long essay;
Test-takers don’t use punctuation;
Test-takers use bullet points or very short sentences;
The response is written in capitals;
There is no written response.
The PTE Practice Platform and feedback for improvement
If PTE takers practice any Part 1: Write Essay question on the PTE Practice Platform, they will receive the following feedback based on six grading elements: Content, Form, Grammar (Spelling), Vocabulary, Coherence, Linguistic Range. Or you can review this video sample feedback for a better understanding.
cre: TADE Hub
We aim to support millions of students across the world by providing the best PTE Practice Platform that offers instantly detailed feedback for all question types. With a Premium account, PTE takers have the following benefits:
Thousands of practice questions similar to the real ones;
Instantly detailed feedback for all question types;
Same grading elements as Pearson;
Full 2-hour mock tests;
Three supportive vocab lists;
And many other supporting self-study features.
Go visit the PTE Practice Platform, create your free account and start boosting your PTE Academic scores today.
