Swoosh English PTE Writing Guide to Write Essay

For many people, academic writing for an upcoming academic English examination brings forth a sense of dread and fear and the PTE academic test (as well as PTE general for that matter) is no different. Writing academic essays is no walk in the park and the PTE Writing Essay section does require a high level of written English, as well as vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. Thankfully, there are some strategies we can adopt to make this task far less daunting and this will be the purpose of this article; to assist you in your PTE exam preparation and allow you to acquire PTE success.

What is Write Essay?

Here is a breakdown of the important information and components of the Write Essay task:

• What do you have to do? Write an argumentative essay (this will involve reading an essay prompt, assessing both sides of the debate, choosing the argument you agree with most and then developing your argument with supporting examples).
• How many words do you have to write? 200-300 words (with 10% leeway in each direction so between 180-330 words.) A well-developed answer will have at least 250 words.
• How long do you have to write it? 20 minutes

Learn these by heart before your PTE exam booking so you are fully aware of what you will have to do on the day.

Warm-up – Ask and Answer

Before we consider our essay prompt today, let’s develop and reflect upon our chosen topic today – Advertising. No doubt many of you will have your own great ideas on this topic.

Please take down some notes and ideas on the following questions. Even better, if you are doing this task with a friend or have a study-buddy, ask and answer these questions with one another and share your opinions.

• What makes an ad memorable?
• What are some effective adverts you have seen lately (on TV, online etc.)?
• What is the best way to advertise to children? Adults? Seniors?
• What are the harmful and the beneficial effects of advertising?
• How easy do you think it is to influence children with advertising?
• Should advertisers be allowed to advertise to children?

Here is this article’s essay prompt:

THE THREE-STEP STRATEGY FOR PTE WRITE ESSAY

Strategy One – Identifying your Argument and Point of View

Make sure you understand what you are being asked to do. It is important that you read the prompt carefully and identify both the focus of the question and the point of view from which you are required to write. Remember, if you write off topic, your essay will be scored zero.

So how can we make sense of our essay question prompt in this question of the PTE English test?

What is the topic focus? Advertising in schools.

What is the point of view? Position you most agree with.

What are the two sides of the argument? Great resource for public schools that need additional funding/exploits children by treating them as a captive audience for corporate sponsors.

Do you have to argue ONE or BOTH sides of the argument? One side (that you most agree with).

Strategy Two – Planning Your Argument and Essay Structure

What is the structure to a PTE style essay?

Like other English examination tests, PTE essay structure follows similar academic principles.

• Introduction (presentation of topic, argument and counter argument)
• Main Body (details refuting counter argument, details supporting own point of view)
• Conclusion (restatement of argument and supporting claim)

In order to develop your answer in a methodical way, keep the following pieces of information in mind and try to get into the habit of thinking about these every time you begin to write your essay 

- First, try to think of one strong sentence to sum up the main argument.

- Then, think of one strong opening sentence and one strong closing sentence.

Once you have done this, you can add details and supporting points to expand the sentence that sums up the main argument to create the body of your essay. You can then develop the opening sentence to create the introduction and the closing sentence to create the conclusion.

Brainstorming

You may already have your own ideas regarding this topic and have already decided on the side of the argument that you most agree with. However, it will stay pay off to take some time (no more than 5 minutes) to brainstorm your ideas in order to develop your argument and confirm or refute your ideas on your original point of view.

Activity – Spend no more than 5 minutes to think of your list of reasons in support of both sides to this argument – Great resource for underfunded schools and Captive to corporate interests.

Here are some ideas for this essay. Feel free to use them in addition to your own: 

• Great resource for underfunded schools - Public schools are chronically underfunded in some countries, can alleviate financial burden for parents if money is used appropriately, some of the products advertised could be of genuine interest to schools, the students, staff and parents, students/teachers could vote on which companies are allowed to advertise.
• Captive to corporate interests - Children are easily influenced and preyed upon by advertising, parents have to foot the bill of these products that children have been exposed too, unhealthy both physically and psychologically, corporate interest could purchase influencing power within schools.

Outlining Your Ideas

Now that you have your ideas, now is the time to take some of these ideas and attempt to place them within your proposed essay structure. 

Here is an idea for how you can do this with some of the previously brainstormed examples:

• Introduction - advertising in schools = great idea for school funding
• Main Body - many schools underfunded, controlled advertising could bring in needed money, students/teachers could vote on which companies can advertise, schools do not need to accept advertising from inappropriate companies…
• Conclusion - controlled advertising in schools could be very beneficial …

Step 3 – Review

Now that you have written your first draft, you should now take some time to review your work. Please ensure you manage your time to include this activity as reviewing your essay will allow you to correct any inaccuracies or mistakes, which will in turn give you a higher score.

What should you be looking out for in your review? Here are some suggestions:

• Have you remained focused on topic? Veering off topic and losing focus will result in a reduction in marks so keep in mind that everything you do for this task needs to be related to the prompt.
• 200 to 300 words?
• Have you used transition words? These result in better cohesion and flow for your essay.
• Academic register? Write like you are writing to your professor, not to your friend via text message. Avoid using slang, colloquialisms and other informalities.
• Any contractions? Focus on using the original term and paraphrasing through the essay rather than using a pronoun for it.
• Any personal pronouns? These should be omitted in preference for more specific language. Avoid using I/we/they etc as well as general phrases such as "In my opinion".
• SVA errors? One that can be easily corrected in the review. You may be surprised that you have made elementary errors such as "he like" and "they is" even at an advanced level of English.
• Punctuation errors?
• Spelling errors?

Wrapping up

Were you able to use these strategies? Which one was the most difficult to apply? And which one do they think was the most useful? Please let us know with any comments and suggestions. Remember, practicing with these strategies with each essay will eventually routinize to the point that you may use them in autopilot, which will result in a higher score. I wish you all these best with your practice of the PTE Writing Essay section and for exam success on your chosen PTE exam dates.

Please check out the video for this lesson to get the recording, as well as more tips, strategies, analysis and prompts. Don’t forget to check out the other blogs and videos on the other sections of the PTE exam too!

Further Practice

Here is another PTE sample test prompt for you to practice writing with before any PTE test booking: