Glossary term

Vocabulary

A writing trait in PTE's automated scoring that measures the range and appropriacy of the words you use — whether your lexical choices are accurate, varied and suited to the task. It is assessed in tasks such as the 200–300-word essay and both summary tasks, alongside grammar, spelling, content and form. The scorer rewards precise, correctly used words over rare ones deployed badly. Vocabulary was among the 'enabling skills' removed from score reports in November 2021; it now appears in the Skills Profile only the test taker sees, while feeding the Writing score on the 10–90 scale.