Examius
🇬🇧 Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) · flashcards
Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies Flashcards
51 question-and-answer cards covering Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies as it is examined in Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic). 24 of them are printed below, taken from across the deck — no signup, no paywall on the preview.
24 sample cards from the Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies deck
Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.
What is paraphrasing, and why is it essential in PTE tasks like Summarize Spoken Text?
Paraphrasing restates a source's meaning in different words and structures while preserving the idea. It shows comprehension and lexical/grammatical range and avoids copying source wording.
List three techniques for effective paraphrasing.
(1) Use synonyms; (2) change word forms (noun↔verb) and grammar (active↔passive); (3) reorder ideas/clauses while keeping the original meaning.
What is a synonym, and what caution applies when substituting synonyms academically?
A synonym is a word with a similar meaning. Caution: synonyms differ in connotation, register, and collocation, so a 'thesaurus swap' may be inaccurate (e.g. 'slim chance' vs 'thin chance').
Give academic synonyms for 'important', 'show', and 'big'.
important → significant/crucial/vital; show → demonstrate/indicate/illustrate; big → substantial/considerable/significant.
In phonetics, what are segmental features?
The individual sound units of speech—the vowels and consonants (phonemes)—that combine to form words.
What is a phoneme, and what is a minimal pair?
A phoneme is the smallest sound unit that distinguishes meaning. A minimal pair is two words differing by only one phoneme, e.g. 'ship'/'sheep' or 'bat'/'pat'.
What are suprasegmental (prosodic) features of pronunciation?
Features extending over more than one sound: stress, rhythm, intonation, pitch, and connected-speech phenomena like linking and weak forms.
What is word stress, and why does it matter for intelligibility?
Word stress is the emphasis on a particular syllable (e.g. PHO-to-graph vs pho-TOG-ra-phy). Misplaced stress can change meaning or make a word unintelligible, lowering pronunciation scores.
Distinguish word stress from sentence (prosodic) stress.
Word stress marks the prominent syllable within a single word; sentence stress highlights the most important (usually content) words within an utterance to convey meaning and rhythm.
What is intonation, and name two common patterns.
Intonation is the rise and fall of pitch across an utterance. Rising intonation often marks yes/no questions or uncertainty; falling intonation marks statements, commands, and wh-questions.
In English connected speech, what are 'weak forms'? Give an example.
Weak forms are reduced (often schwa) pronunciations of function words in unstressed positions, e.g. 'and' /ænd/ → /ən/, 'to' /tuː/ → /tə/. They support natural rhythm.
What does it mean that English is a 'stress-timed' language?
Stressed syllables tend to occur at roughly regular intervals, and unstressed syllables are compressed between them, producing English's characteristic rhythm.
In PTE speaking, how are the three pronunciation/fluency traits scored conceptually?
Content (accuracy of what is said), Oral Fluency (smooth, natural rhythm and pace), and Pronunciation (intelligible vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation) are scored separately.
Define oral fluency and list factors that reduce it.
Oral fluency is smooth, effortless speech at a natural pace. It is reduced by hesitations, fillers ('um', 'uh'), repetitions, false starts, long pauses, and self-corrections.
Give three strategies to build speaking fluency for PTE.
(1) Practise chunking—group words into meaningful phrases; (2) avoid restarting after errors—keep going; (3) maintain a steady pace and use shadowing/timed reading aloud.
What is 'chunking' in fluent speech, and why does it help?
Chunking is grouping words into meaningful phrases with pauses at natural boundaries. It improves rhythm, comprehension, and fluency scores by avoiding word-by-word delivery.
Why should you avoid filler words and self-correction in PTE 'Read Aloud'?
Pauses, fillers, and going back to fix words break rhythm and are penalised under oral fluency; it is better to read on smoothly even after a minor slip.
What is the difference between British and American spelling, with examples relevant to PTE?
PTE accepts both, but be consistent. Examples: '-our'/'-or' (colour/color), '-ise'/'-ize' (organise/organize), '-re'/'-er' (centre/center), 'travelling'/'traveling'.
State the spelling rule 'i before e except after c' and a common exception.
Use 'ie' generally (believe, field) but 'ei' after 'c' (receive, ceiling). Exceptions include 'weird', 'seize', 'their', and words sounded 'ay' like 'neighbour' and 'weigh'.
What is the doubling (1-1-1) rule for adding suffixes?
In a one-syllable word ending in one consonant after one vowel, double the final consonant before a vowel-suffix: stop→stopped, big→bigger. For multi-syllable words, double only if the final syllable is stressed (prefer→preferred, but offer→offered).
What qualities define high written discourse quality in PTE essays?
Clear thesis and logical structure, coherence and cohesion (linking devices, referencing), unity of paragraphs, appropriate academic register, and accurate grammar/vocabulary.
Distinguish coherence from cohesion in written discourse.
Coherence is the overall logical flow and clarity of ideas. Cohesion is the surface-level linking using devices such as conjunctions, reference words (this, it), and lexical chains.
Name three categories of cohesive devices with an example of each.
Addition ('moreover', 'furthermore'), Contrast ('however', 'in contrast'), Cause/result ('therefore', 'as a result'). Reference words like 'this', 'these', 'such' also create cohesion.
What is editing/proofreading, and what is the difference between the two?
Editing improves content, structure, clarity, and word choice; proofreading is the final check for surface errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and typos before submission.
What this deck covers
The Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies deck follows the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies syllabus — 4 chapters and 12 topics — so questions land on material that is genuinely examinable rather than trivia around it. That works out to roughly 12.8 cards per chapter.
Answers are written to be recallable, not just readable — averaging about 170 characters, which is long enough to carry the reasoning and short enough to say out loud.
A deck like this earns its keep on the second and third pass. Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then use the cards to find the specific facts that have not stuck.
Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies flashcards FAQ
How many Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies flashcards are in this Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) deck?
51 cards. This page previews 24 of them, sampled evenly across the deck so you can judge the difficulty before installing anything.
Are these Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) flashcards free?
Yes. The preview here is free to read with no signup, and the full 51-card deck is free inside the Examius app.
What do the Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies cards cover?
They follow the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) Enabling Skills and Cross-Skill Competencies syllabus — 4 chapters and 12 topics — so the questions track what is actually examinable.
How should I use these flashcards?
Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then drill the deck. Examius schedules each card with spaced repetition, so cards you keep missing come back sooner and ones you know drift further apart.