many students confess to me that sometimes in the exam room during the essay part
their mind suddenly goes blank and they don't know what to write
hi guys this is moni from pte magic welcome back to my channel
in today's video i'll be sharing with you guys the top 5 most common mistakes that
people make when doing pte writing so without further ado let's get started
the first common mistake that i noticed when checking countless of writing homework in
the last four years is a grammatical error which is related to subject verb agreement
most of the concepts of the subject and verb agreement are quite straightforward
but the exceptions to the rules sometimes can make it more complicated but here are the few
examples that you should remember when it comes to the subject and verb agreement subjects and votes
must agree in number this is the cornerstone rule that forms the background of the concept
for example the student studies for his upcoming pte exam so the student here is a single
noun therefore we don't have any s at the end and the verb is studies which is singular verb that's
why we have s another sentence is the students study for the upcoming pte exam the students here
is a plural noun which is why we have s and the verb study is a plural verb so no s is added here
when gerunds are used as the subject of a sentence they take the singular form of the verb however
when they are linked by and they take the plural form for example listening is the hardest part in
pte listening is singular here which is why we're using the verb is another sentence is listening
and speaking are the hardest parts in pte so listening and speaking are connected by n which
is why we're using the plural verb here which is are if two infinitives are separated by and
they will take the plural form of the verb for example to read and write while in english
require lots of practice so the verb required here is plural verb we don't have any s
and there are two infinitives which are to read and to write a collective noun such as
team or staff can be either singular or plural depending upon the rest of the sentence typically
they take the singular form as the collective noun is treated as a cohesive single unit for example
the team is working on creating pte question bank here we use the verb is which is singular verb
these rules are quite straightforward but trust me i lost count of how many times students make
these mistakes in the exam room so it might be due to the time pressure that you get or maybe because
of the anxiety that happens during the exam room either way make sure that you check your grammar
carefully so that you don't lose those precious writing points the number two mistakes is mixing
american and british spelling those of you who notice two different spellings for the same word
but do not know which one is correct you must know that they both can be correct words like favor
or color can also be written as favor or color without you the difference is that one follows the
british spelling and another follows the american spelling the tricky part is that you can only
follow one pattern in your answer so it doesn't mean that you have to use a particular spelling
in all of your writing tasks but in a particular task for example in one summarise written text
if you've chosen to write in british spelling then everything must be written in reader spelling you
can't mix two together and you can also check that in the pte official score guide using both
spelling of favor and color in your essays will show the lack of understanding of those
two types of spelling and it's like an accent you can't mix two accents while speaking so don't mix
those two spellings try to remember few important rules when it comes to us and uk spelling and
be consistent in your writing part number three is not following the word count limitation even
though the word count limit is given for each task students somehow still manage to go under or over
the word limitation so for example in summarise written text you are only allowed to write from
5 to 75 words for the essay writing is 200 to 300 words and for summarize for context you can only
write from 50 to 70 words when it comes to pte essay writing you only have 20 minutes to write
an essay of 200 to 300 words a good idea is to use a template to help you save time and also
the trick that i use is i tend to begin writing an introduction and after introduction i start
writing my conclusion the reason why i do this is because the body part will take time to write
and if you write conclusions straight away then you don't have to worry about it later on
and it also means that you don't have to rush at the end even when you practice at home
don't cheat and strictly time yourself set a timer of 20 minutes and follow the time strictly and
check your word count every single time for some reason text even if you add extra word
making it 76 words you will not be scored at all so you will get zero point for the task and of
course you guys don't want that to happen number four is not checking spelling in writing related
listening tasks okay it sounds a bit complicated writing related listening tasks but they are
actually the listening tasks which are related to writing so they are summarized spoken text
fill in the blanks and write formations i noticed that everyone these days use the spell check
or grammarly when writing on the computer or when drafting the email and of course i know that it is
a must-have tool in our everyday life but it also kind of prevents us from having correct spelling
so personally for myself i used to rely so much on spell check that at some point i keep forgetting
the actual correct spelling for certain words and it really diminished my spelling my recommendation
is that don't use the spell check while writing so only use it after you finish writing because
it's very clear that you can learn incorrect spelling if you keep using the spell check
the last mistake that i observe is that people tend to focus too much on the meaning in the
writing task many students confess to me that sometimes in the exam room during the essay part
their mind suddenly goes blank and they don't know what to write you should remember that pte is very
different from ielts and the secret is between us you don't need to actually focus too much on the
meaning at the end of the day is a computer test no one will be reading your essay and as long as
you have good keywords spelling and grammar then you're good to go for essay never try to write a
complex essay include as many topic keywords as you can if the essay is about education
then you can write about academic resources or use the words like university facilities
etc adding the relevant words will boost your vocabulary score in your essay and also you don't
need some complicated or difficult words to spice up your essay just paraphrasing will be enough
you need to make sure to practice writing few essays on different topics prior to the real test
go through some common vocabulary for different topics so that you don't get lost when you go to
the actual test only 20 minutes is given for your essay so using a template will be a great idea
and plus it will help you to reduce some grammatical mistakes for summaries and
text and for some right spoken text it's also the same thing don't try to focus too much on
the meaning it's all about your keywords your content and also your grammar and your spelling
those were the five most common mistakes that you should avoid when it comes to pte
writing if you found this video helpful make sure to click the like button and comment
below and if you are new to my channel please click the subscribe button below
thank you so much for watching and good luck with your test