2025 was one of the busiest years in PTE Academic's recent history. As the year closes, PTE King has put together a full recap of what changed, plus a preview of what to expect heading into 2026 - useful reading whether your test is booked for December or well into next year.

The headline change: two new speaking tasks

From 7 August 2025, Respond to a Situation and Summarize Group Discussion became a permanent part of the exam, taking the total number of question types from 20 to 22 and extending total test time slightly to around two hours and fifteen minutes. This was the most significant structural change to PTE Academic in several years, and it reflected a deliberate shift in what the exam is trying to measure.

A shift towards real-life communication

Both new tasks were designed to test spontaneous, natural communication rather than rehearsed academic responses. Respond to a Situation places candidates in everyday social scenarios - apologies, negotiations, requests - while Summarize Group Discussion tests the ability to follow and condense a multi-speaker conversation. Neither rewards a memorised script the way older, more predictable tasks sometimes did.

Scoring got smarter, not just stricter

Alongside the new tasks, Pearson increased human oversight on top of its existing AI scoring for several task types, specifically targeting responses that sound heavily templated or generic relative to the actual prompt. This matters for anyone still relying on long, fixed scripts memorised months in advance - the trend throughout 2025 was clearly toward rewarding genuine, prompt-specific content over rehearsed delivery.

What repeated the most in 2025

Across PTE King's own question bank data, Write From Dictation, Essay and Answer Short Question remained the tasks most frequently reported as repeating close to identically across different test sittings, reinforcing just how valuable focused prediction-question practice continues to be for these specific tasks.

What to expect going into 2026

• All 22 question types should now be treated as core exam content, not "new" additions to work around.

• Expect continued emphasis on natural, flexible responses over fixed templates, especially in Speaking and Writing.

• Full-length mock testing, covering realistic section timing and total exam stamina, will matter more than ever given the longer overall test duration.

A month-by-month look back at 2025's biggest PTE moments

Beyond the headline August format change, 2025 saw a steady stream of smaller updates that added up to a meaningfully different exam experience by year's end. Early in the year, candidate feedback increasingly pointed to Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks and Write From Dictation as the tasks worth the most focused preparation time - a pattern that held steady even after the August changes. Mid-year, discussion around AI-assisted scoring accuracy grew, with test-takers and prep providers alike reporting closer alignment between predicted and actual scores for objectively-gradable tasks. By the final quarter of the year, most major PTE preparation resources, including PTE King, had fully updated their materials to reflect all 22 question types as standard content rather than treating the two new tasks as an addendum.

What didn't change in 2025 - and why that matters

It's easy to focus entirely on what's new, but the tasks and scoring approach that stayed the same in 2025 are just as important to remember. Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence, Describe Image, Essay and the core Reading and Listening task types kept their existing formats and scoring criteria throughout the year. This continuity matters because it means the large body of proven technique and practice material built up over previous years - chunking for Repeat Sentence, pacing for Read Aloud, collocation awareness for Fill in the Blanks - remains just as relevant heading into 2026 as it always was.

How candidate expectations shifted over the year

At the start of 2025, most candidates researching PTE prep were focused almost entirely on question banks and prediction files. By the end of the year, there was a noticeably greater focus on full mock testing and realistic exam simulation, driven partly by the longer test duration and partly by growing awareness that isolated question practice doesn't fully prepare candidates for the stamina and pacing demands of the complete exam. This shift is reflected directly in how PTE King has expanded its own tools over the year, moving from a pure question bank toward a complete simulated exam experience.

Setting realistic expectations for 2026 preparation timelines

With a longer overall test and two additional task types to prepare for compared to pre-2025 candidates, allowing extra preparation time compared to what may have been sufficient in previous years is a sensible adjustment. Where a candidate might previously have felt ready after four to six weeks of focused preparation, six to eight weeks is a more realistic baseline heading into 2026, particularly for candidates who need dedicated practice time on Respond to a Situation and Summarize Group Discussion specifically.

How PTE King's own practice data reflected the year's changes

Internally, PTE King tracked a clear shift in how candidates used our platform across 2025: engagement with Respond to a Situation and Summarize Group Discussion practice grew steadily from near zero in August to a meaningful share of total practice sessions by December, while engagement with the classic 20 question types remained broadly stable rather than declining - candidates were adding new practice on top of their existing routines, not replacing it. This pattern is exactly what you'd want to see from a well-adapting candidate population, and it's a trend PTE King expects to see continue as further exam refinements happen over time.

A final thought heading into the new year

Perhaps the most important lesson from 2025 is that the fundamentals of good PTE preparation - understanding exactly what each task scores, practising with real and varied material, and testing yourself under realistic full-length conditions - remain constant even as the specific format evolves around them. Candidates who built strong fundamentals rather than narrow, format-specific shortcuts adapted to the August 2025 changes far more smoothly than those who hadn't.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to prepare differently if my exam is in early 2026?

Yes - make sure your practice covers all 22 question types, including Respond to a Situation and Summarize Group Discussion, rather than only the classic 20 tasks from before August 2025.

Has the overall PTE scoring scale changed?

No, the 10-90 overall scoring scale and the underlying Communicative Skills and Enabling Skills breakdown remain the same - only the number and type of tasks contributing to those scores has expanded.

What is the best way to prepare for the 2026 format?

Cover every task type systematically using PTE King's practice dashboard, then validate your readiness with a full-length mock test that reflects the current 22-question structure.

Whatever 2026 brings, PTE King will keep updating our question bank and mock test to match the current exam format - see you in the new year.