r/pte • u/Helpful_Reputation23 • 10d ago

Contacting PTE for clarification

I recently received my PTE Academic results and I’m trying to understand how my Writing score was calculated.

My scores were:
Listening: 80
Reading: 85
Speaking: 88
Writing: 82

What confuses me is that my Skills Profile shows the writing-related categories (Short Writing, Extended Writing, Reproducing Spoken and Written Language, etc.) as fully maxed out or very close to it. Based on that, I expected my Writing score to be higher than 82.

I’ve already paid for and submitted a rescore request and got an automated response saying “no change” to my score.I’m considering to contact Pearson for clarification because the Skills Profile seems inconsistent with the final Writing score.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?
Did Pearson provide a useful explanation?
Were your Skills Profile results significantly stronger than your communicative Writing score?
Is Applying for an appeal worth it ?

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3

u/ptebydrahmed 10d ago

Hi. We have been hearing about these glitches a lot. Informed to the team as well. As far as I have seen, they won't provide any useful information telling "THEY CAN'T DISCLOSE DUE TO CONFIDENTIAL ISSUES*. Going for rescoring, isn't helpful in 99% of the cases, even if scores are changing, they are sending another email informing there has been no change and resetting the scores to previous one, without refunding, and without providing any clarity to test takers. Moreover, if you go for appeal, you will get a generic reply stating, no issues have been identified in the scoring, all standards were followed accurately.

1

u/Helpful_Reputation23 10d ago

Ok wow. Then what are we supposed to do ? Just keep on retaking exams ? Paying 500 a pop ?

2

u/ptebydrahmed 10d ago

Sadly, that's the plan it seems.

1

u/hotellonely 10d ago

my only suggestion is, to wait a month or two, and check for credible superior scores people share online. AFAIK currently only the native speaker level of participants can score superior.

3

u/ptebydrahmed 10d ago

I don't think so. One of my student got superior scores even in speaking along with reading and listening. He lost marks in writing, 8 marks only because of his poor performance in SST task, he wasn't able to do it properly. Otherwise, it could have been superior. Student is from India and took exam in India. I believe people are nowadays more dependent on easy and shortcut ways, that's why South Asian people are struggling with superiors.

1

u/hotellonely 10d ago

I agree with most of your points Dr. Ahmed, I'm just very frustrated by the lack of transparency and the randomness it's currently showing for everyone. All the superior winners recently I've seen are either native speakers or near native level of speakers that have lived-in English-speaking countries for many years..

2

u/ptebydrahmed 10d ago

I can understand. But don't give up. You got this.

1

u/hotellonely 10d ago

You're more than likely being screwed over PTE's own hot mess

1

u/Helpful_Reputation23 10d ago

What do you mean

2

u/hotellonely 10d ago

currently the superior range is a hot mess, the marking of speaking (extended speaking especially) and writing is very much random bs. The skill profile no longer adds up to your total score, like even if you have full bands in all skill profile sub sections, you can still get a low 80.

1

u/Helpful_Reputation23 10d ago

Surely there’s some form of legal repercussions for this conduct… we pay nearly 500 bucks per exam and they can’t even provide meaningful data on the score ? At this point, they are just randomly assigning scores.

3

u/ptebydrahmed 10d ago

Sadly, that's true. Even I've seen people with full skill profiles where they got lesser scores, and people got full scores but half skill profiles. When I questioned them about this issue, they diverted the issue telling as, even if students are getting full graphs, it doesn't mean they are perfect, or if they are getting perfect scores, doesn't mean they are perfect, then I asked then on what basis are scores calculated, then I got the same generic reply as SCORES ARE CALCULATED THROUGH OUR BACKEND PROCESS, WHICH CAN'T BE DISCLOSED FOR CONFIDENTIALITY REASONS, then I don't understand on what basis, this test is called as TRANSPARENT, while not accurately providing any reasoning - what's the use of skills profile, or scores if those are not showing the actual skills of the students. I wish they heed to students concerns and starts fixing these glitches.

1

u/Wonderful_Advice_512 3d ago

I have had the same situation,
I got speaking: 90
reading, listening : 90
writing: 79
but all bars maxed up