I've been trying to get my PTE score up for the past four months and I'm honestly at my wit's end. My target is 65 overall for my visa application, and I keep landing around 58-60. The reading and listening sections are okay — I think I can crack those — but speaking is destroying my scores every single time. I record myself and I genuinely can't tell what's wrong.
A bit of background: I studied for my first attempt mostly through pteen com and a few YouTube channels, maybe 3 hours a day for six weeks. Second attempt I ramped it up to 5 hours daily but same result. I've heard people talk about how the PTE scoring algorithm is brutal on oral fluency and pronunciation separately, and that even a small hesitation tanks your fluency band. Is that actually true? How do people even practice for that?
I also found these FREE PTE Academic Questions and Answers recently and they've been helpful for getting a feel for question types, but I still feel lost on the speaking strategy specifically. Anyone who's cracked 65+ in speaking — what actually worked for you?