Initial PTE Placement test

(Pearson center MINDI)

By, Rassell
✓ Speaking part
Read Aloud Question – read it loud and record your answer.

Materials inspired by disappearing Hollywood dinosaurs and real-life shy squid have been
invented. The thin swatches can quickly change how they reflect heat, smoothing or
wrinkling their surfaces in under a second after being stretched or electrically triggered.
Potential uses include better camouflage for troops and insulation for spacecraft, storage
containers, emergency shelters, clinical care, and building heating and cooling system.

✓ Writing part
Read the passage below and summarize it using one sentence. You have 10 minutes to finish this task

Summarize Written Text Question

Monitoring in real time what happens in and around our bodies can be invaluable in the
context of healthcare or clinical studies, but not so easy to do. That could soon change
thanks to new, miniaturized sensors developed by researchers at the Tufts University
School of Engineering that, when mounted directly on a tooth and communicating
wirelessly with a mobile device, can transmit information on glucose, salt and alcohol
intake. Researchers note that future adaptations of these sensors could enable the
detection and recording of a wide range of nutrients, chemicals, and physiological states.
Previous wearable devices for monitoring dietary intake suffered from limitations such as
requiring the use of a mouth guard, bulky wiring, or necessitating frequent replacement as
the sensors rapidly degraded. Tufts engineers sought a more adaptable technology and
developed a sensor with a mere 2mm x 2mm footprint that can flexibly conform and bond
to the irregular surface of a tooth. In a similar fashion to the way a toll is collected on a
highway, the sensors transmit their data wirelessly in response to an incoming
radiofrequency signal.

The sensors are made up of three sandwiched layers: a central “bio responsive” layer that
absorbs the nutrient or other chemicals to be detected, and outer layers consisting of two
Initial PTE Placement test
(Pearson center MINDI)
By, Rassell
square-shaped gold rings. Together, the three layers act like a tiny antenna, collecting and
transmitting waves in the radiofrequency spectrum. As an incoming wave hits the sensor,
some of it is canceled out and the rest transmitted back, just like a patch of blue paint
absorbs redder wavelengths and reflects the blue back to our eyes.

Essay Question
You have 20 minutes to write 200-300 words.

Urban sprawl is an increasing issue around the world. One way in which to solve this issue
is to construct cities vertically rather than horizontally. Are such cities a good idea? Write
between 200 and 300 words

✓ Reading part

1 . Multiple Choice, choose Single Answer

Read the text and answer the multiple-choice question by selecting the correct response.
Only one response is correct.

Question –

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and

neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use and language. Initial forays into
psycholinguistics were largely philosophical were largely philosophical venture, due
mainly to a lack of cohesive data on how the human brain functioned. Modern research
makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science and information theory to study how
the brain processes language. There are a number of subdisciplines for example, as
Initial PTE Placement test
(Pearson center MINDI)
By, Rassell
neurolinguistics techniques for studying the neurological workings of the brain became
more and more widespread, neurolinguistics has become a field in its own right.

According to the text, contemporary psycholinguistics can best be described as

A) philosophical
B) non-invasive
C) widespread
D) interdisciplinary
E) psychological
F) well-established

2.Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers Question –

Engineering research shows that adoption of self-driving cars — also known as
autonomous vehicles (AVs) — could significantly reduce the amount of valuable urban
space dedicated to parking.

“In a parking lot full of AVs, you don’t need to open the doors, so they can park with very
little space in between,” says Professor Matthew Roorda, senior author of a new study in
Transportation Research Part B. “You also don’t need to leave space for each car to drive
out, because you can signal the surrounding AVs to move out of the way.”

While traditional parking lots are configured for “islands” of cars that can each pull in or
out of a spot, an AV parking lot could resemble a solid grid, with outer cars moving aside as
needed to let the inner cars enter and exit. The researchers’ challenge was to determine the
optimal size of the grid to maximize storage while minimizing the number of moves
required to extract any given car.

“There’s a trade-off,” says Roorda. “If you have a very large grid, it leads to a lot of
relocations, which means that it takes longer on average to retrieve your vehicle. On the
other hand, if you have a number of smaller grids, it wastes a lot of space.”
Initial PTE Placement test
(Pearson center MINDI)
By, Rassell
Read the text and answer the question by selecting all the correct responses. You will
need to select more than one response.

Question – What is professor Roorda attempting to do?

A) Improve the way in which AV’s signal to each other
B) Decrease the space needed between AVs when they are packed
C) Calculate the size of the parking grid to maximize AV storage
D) Decrease the number of movies needed to retrieve an AV
E) Reduce valuable urban space
F) Stop AVs from pulling out on each other

3.Reorder paragraph Question –

A) To learn more about how these groups of land mammals took on their characteristic
girth when they turned aquatic, the researchers complied body masses for 3,859 living and
2,999 fossil mammal species from existing data sets.

B) From this analysis, the group found that once land animals take to the water, they evolve
very quickly towards their new size, converging at around 1,000 pounds.

C) The analysis includes about 70 percent of living species and 25 percent of extinct
species.

D) Although mammals that live in water share a similarly oblong body shape, they are not
closely related.

E) Rather, seals and sea lions are closely related to dogs, manatees share ancestry with
elephants, and whales and dolphins are related to hippos and other hooted mammals.
Initial PTE Placement test
(Pearson center MINDI)
By, Rassell

4.Fill in the blanks

A text appears on screen with several gaps. Drag words from the box below to fill the gaps.
Only spend about a minute on this task.

Skill text
This text your knowledge and application of vocabulary and particularly collocation.

The Graduate Certificate in Peace and Conflict Studies is a coursework program aimed 1)
__________ developing conceptual and empirical understanding in the field of peace and
conflict studies. Students will gain a basic understanding 2) __________ how conflicts emerge
and how they can be managed and solved 3) __________ a nonviolent manner. Topics covered
span 4) __________ the local to the global and include issues such as peace and conflict studies
theory, peacebuilding, conflict resolution and prevention, and contested peace.

Options

A) at
B) from
C) about
D) in
E) to
F) of
G) within
Initial PTE Placement test
(Pearson center MINDI)
By, Rassell
✓ Listening
1. Listen to audio recording and write it down.

2. You will hear a short lecture. Write a summary about 50-70 words. You
have 10 minutes to finish this task.