PTE Academic causes a great deal of stress. PTE Candidates prepare for months or even years to take them and then when they do not get their target PTE score, they feel really disappointed. It is only natural that they wonder whether or not the results were fair and accurate. As such, thousands of PTE test takers want to know whether they should go for revaluation and get their PTE result rescored.
Read on to find out whether this is right for you.
What is PTE Exam Rescoring?
In nutshell, PTE rescoring is the term used for applying remarking or revaluation of your PTE Academic score if you are not satisfied with the scores given Pearson PTE in your PTE Academic test. Even though PTE marking criteria is quite well-defined and can be easily found on the internet, not everyone agrees with the final score given to them.
PTE allows its candidates to appeal their results through a process called “rescoring.” This means that the exam is submitted again and a new set of results are given.
Which questions types will be marked in PTE rescoring?
Only the speaking and open-ended writing answers are rescored. Because of the format of the other sections, which are judged simply by a computer algorithm, there is no margin of error and so they cannot be changed under any circumstances.
So, the questions types are we are talking about are likely to be
Speaking: Repeat Sentence, Read Aloud, Describe Image, Re-tell lecture. Answer Short Question
Writing: Summarise Written Text, Write Essay
Listening: Summarise Spoken Text
Am I eligible?
Anyone who has taken the PTE test recently can apply. You need to apply within 14 days of receiving your PTE Academic score report. Basically, it’s the day when you receive the email from Pearson PTE that your test result is available. Only the most recent PTE result can be requested to be rescored or remarked. For instance, if you took 2 PTE tests 1 week apart, you may apply for rescoring only for the second test and not for the first one.
What’s the PTE rescoring fee?
Pearson PTE has not publicly disclosed this information and a PTE test taker needs to contact the customer service team to find out this information. In any case, this PTE rescoring process is not free and you need to take financial aspects into consideration. The good news is that the rescoring fee will be refunded if the score changes post remarking.
Is there any risk?
While a PTE rescoring gives you a small chance of increasing your score, it is also theoretically possible that your score could go down. In some scenarios, a lower score could hurt your chances of using the existing PTE score. For instance, if you are a doctor or nurse planning to combine PTE scores in two sittings for your medical registration in Australia, a lower score post remarking might make you ineligible to combine the PTE scores in two sittings.
Is PTE Rescoring Right for Me?
Pearson PTE Academic official website does not recommend booking for remarking of your PTE score and rightly so. Unfortunately, there are not too many cases available where the scores have gone up considerably. So, what should you do as a test taker who is desperate need of that 50, 65 or 79? Well, a good decision would be to try and use Benchmark Smart PTE Advisor to identify which question types you might have lost marks in and start preparing once again.
However, there is some small chance that your score could be slightly improved. If you believe that your performance was very good and that you were unfairly assigned a lower score than you wanted, you might feel that there was some sort of misunderstanding. Even in that case, the difference between your target score and result shouldn’t be more than 1 or 2 marks.
Conclusion
It is a tough decision whether or not to ask for a PTE rescoring, but ultimately it is not generally advisable. You would have to be very, very confident in your abilities and have a good reason to believe that your grade could be increased on a second marking. For the vast majority of candidates, then, it is simply not a good choice.
The best thing to do is take your PTE results as a fair judgment of your English abilities and plan your preparation going forward. If you did not get the score you wanted or needed, you must ask yourself how you can improve and then book another test for a realistic date in the future. This would be more likely to yield a better result and would also avoid the waste of money that comes with choosing a rescore.
I got overall only 25 score
Speaking only 10