There has been an evolution in PTE! In just a few years, PTE has taken a giant step into the world of language proficiency tests. It has many positive outcomes based on how it is implemented and designed. In terms of success, the exam seems to grasp the steps slowly but steadily, not just for PTE but also for the candidates who choose it. Likewise, PTE enabling skills have also gathered considerable importance in PTE.
Scoring good marks is all that is important for the PTE. In other words, to accomplish your goals, you have to score well. It might be either studying abroad or settling in other countries. In the same vein, enabling skills for PTE is another essential aspect of PTE for acing the exam.
Therefore, in this article, I will discuss the enabling skills of PTE and ways to improve it. Additionally, you will learn what role these enabling skills play in the PTE exam.
What are Enabling Skills in PTE?
A high score in the PTE exam depends heavily on enabling skills. Consequently, it is vital that you must hone your enabling skills if you plan on taking the PTE. They can make all the difference in getting you the results you want. Below are the enabling skills tested and scored:
- Grammar
- Oral Fluency
- Pronunciation
- Spelling
- Vocabulary
- Written Discourse
Enabling Skills contribute significantly to your score on the PTE. The following are some suggestions for improving Enabling skills presented by Edutrainex. But before we move further, let me tell you about the different enabling skills in brief.
Enabling Skills: Different Components
- Grammar. Correct word order at the sentence level, appropriate language usage, and sticking to the word format.
- Oral fluency. Delivering speech smoothly and naturally.
- Pronunciation. First of all, ensure that the speech is loud and clear. Secondly, it ought to be easy for both regular people and native speakers to understand the speech. Normally, the regional or national variants of English pronunciation are considered correct for the purpose of being easy to understand by the majority of regular English speakers. To summarize, speech should be loud, clear, and easy to understand by all.
- Spelling. Make sure you follow either the British or American spelling rules. If you’re not certain about how to spell a word, don’t write it.
- Vocabulary. Use of appropriate words to convey meaning and a wide lexical range.
- Written discourse. A word-based approach to writing that is efficient and accurate. Firstly, ensure that sentences are connected logically. Secondly, utilize the right words when executing first and second. For instance, as you can see, I have used words like ‘Firstly,’ ‘Secondly,’ and ‘Thirdly’ in the above sentences. Through this writing, I have developed my written discourse. In Conclusion, there are guidelines to improve written discourse.
Enabling Skills: Ways to improve it.
As I already said initially, you can improve your PTE test score if you pay attention to your enabling skills and work hard to improve them.
Look at some tips you can use to enhance your enabling skills to score high on the PTE test.
GRAMMAR TIPS
- Get familiar with the topics or subjects that interest you by reading newspapers, ebooks, magazines, blogs, or articles. As you read about your favorite subject on a regular basis, you will slowly learn how to construct sentences and understand word order.
- Become a grammar nazi for yourself. There’s no doubt that all social media platforms dislike and troll these grammar nazis. This term has become notoriously popular over time. And to be honest, I am a grammar nazi myself! However, if you want to pass the PTE test, do not take any grammatical errors for granted.
- Develop a habit of writing grammatically correct English in your routine life. It makes a world of difference if you check your content for grammatical errors before you send an email or post a social media status on Facebook. Also, watch for punctuation marks errors, apostrophes, commas, and semicolons.
- Try talking in English to your friends, family, and colleagues proficient in the language. Whenever you make a grammatical mistake, ask them to correct you.
TIPS FOR ORAL FLUENCY
- Remember that fluency doesn’t mean speaking quickly. If you speak slowly, you will be able to gather your thoughts, your words won’t get missed, and your speech will be understandable.
- Listen to your voice while you speak for a minute about a topic to determine whether there are any grammatical errors, fillers, or other reasons that affect your oral fluency.
Additionally, make sure to check out our post on PTE Speaking for Indian Speakers.
PRONUNCIATION TIPS
- Listen to related podcasts to improve your pronunciation. Additionally, you can find good tutorial videos on YouTube.
- Watch how your lips move, and your tongue moves when you speak.
- Emphasize word stress, syllable stress, and intonation.
- Practice by recording your own voice and listening to it for corrections.
SPELLING TIPS
- Don’t depend on spellcheckers, whether you’re writing an email or simply texting. Many of us who make spelling mistakes don’t know the difference between ‘advice’ & ‘advise’, ‘accept’ & ‘accept’, ‘practice’ & ‘practise’, and so on.
- Keep an eye out for spelling errors you make frequently. Then you can either write down the correct spellings or put sticky notes so that you can remember the correct spellings.
VOCABULARY TIPS
- Try to read as much as possible. Getting introduced to new words through magazines, newspapers, blogs, and books is a great way to learn.
- Be sure to keep track of the new words you learn daily. It’s okay to start with just one word a day, but there is nothing as rewarding as more than that.
- Keeping a dictionary at hand is always a good idea. Today, smartphones come with a plethora of dictionaries. Merriam Webster is one such good website, and I have been using it for over a decade now.
WRITING TIPS
- Familiarize yourself with academic English.
- To enhance your writing skills, you should develop a coherent and logical structure so you can convey your intended meaning through writing.
- Writing a discourse requires the following elements: Introduction & Presentation of Argument, Analysis of the Text, Personal Response, and Conclusion.
- While writing, be careful not to use the first-person pronouns “I” and “Me.” Removing these will improve the maturity and effectiveness of your composition.
- Keep your sentences short! When writing, use the “Don’t waste the reader’s time” rule as a thumb rule.
By now, you must have got a few helpful tips on how to improve your enabling skills. Now to motivate you towards actually implementing these in your daily life, let me tell you their role and significance in the PTE exam.
Enabling Skills: Role and Significance
PTEs are computer-scored tests. Scores are assigned for some exam items in relation to the accuracy of the answer, while others are based upon the formality of the response along with its quality.
As part of measuring the quality of response, enabling skills are tested. Taking this approach, the PTE score is divided into the communicative skills score and the enabling skills score.
The enabling score shows where the test-takers need to improve and how easy it is to pull out their communicative skill score. Scores for enabling skills range from 10 to 90. There is a possibility that an examinee has good listening skills but is not proficient in spelling and vocabulary.
Consequently, incorrect words and wrong spelling will appear on the PTE exam. Because the candidate lacks the necessary enabling skills, he will be scored as a poor listener.
In a similar situation, even a competent speaker can struggle with using intonation and correct pronunciation. This will result in low scores in the speaking section.
Neglecting the enabling skills score will narrow down the English improvement options. Consequently, there will be an impact on the overall PTE score.
The enabling skills are the elements that indicate test-takers productivity in the writing and speaking sections.
Basically, enabling skills are essential as grammar is essential in a sentence. Now let me tell you about how enabling skills affect the overall PTE Score.
Enabling Skills: How they affect the PTE score
Enabling skills are a key determinant of the assessment measure. Understanding them appropriately can significantly enhance the final score.
In order to get points for the enabling skills, the content and form of the response must be correct. For instance, in the task, the test taker retells a lecture about the environment. But he fails to mention it. In an effort to work around this, he chose social issues as the subject matter for his talk. Therefore, he will not receive any points, and thus the enabling skills will not be scored.
After giving a score for the content of the response, the scoring system evaluates the form of the response. For example, if the response met the length requirement, points would be awarded, and then it would be rated according to enabling skills and other characteristics. Finally, the score report reflects the total of all enabling skills scores earned across all tasks.
A total score is derived from the content, form, and enabling skills scores. In many cases, the candidate may not have scored well, but still, they have good enabling skills. Therefore, ignoring the enabling skill score can be the biggest mistake if you aim for higher marks in PTE.