Preparing for PTE's new Summarize Group Discussion task

When Pearson introduced the Summarize Group Discussion task in August, it caught many test-takers off guard. Here's what you need to know about this new speaking task and how to approach it effectively.

What you're actually being asked to do?

This isn't your typical listening exercise. The task involves listening to a conversation between three people in a university context, then providing a 2-minute verbal summary. This task is designed to assess your ability to understand and synthesize academic group discussions—not just memorize what people said.

Shows the 3 steps on how the summarize group disucssion task works. Step 1: Listen & Note, Step 2: Prepare and Step 3: Speak.

The format is actually simple and similar to every other PTE module:

Step 1: Listen to the discussion (you can absolutely take notes while it's happening)

Step 2: After the audio finishes, you get 10 seconds—just enough time to glance at your notes and organize your main points

Step 3: The mic opens and you deliver your summary

This task is designed to assess your ability to understand and synthesize academic group discussions—not just memorize what people said.

Three-speaker format

Every discussion follows the same pattern: exactly three speakers, never more or fewer. You'll hear a mix of students, professors, or admin staff discussing university-related topics like time management, assignments, or library policies.

The speakers will have distinct voices with different accents and genders, making them easy to distinguish. Each speaker takes two or three turns during the discussion, though not necessarily in sequential order.

Strategies

Below we discuss some effective strategies for note taking and preparing for this task with an example from official sources.

Note taking strategies

Before the conversation starts, set up your notes. While you can set up your own note taking template, we tried the official template structure recommended by Pearsons, and it worked surprsing well for us. Here's what that looks like:

Shows a note taking template, Topic: _________________ S1: [space for notes] S2: [space for notes] S3: [space for notes]

You don't get a lot of time : The discussion goes fairly quicky, so you will not have the time to write down full words, look for keywords and abbrevate or shorten them where possible. But make sure you write it clearly and you can read what you write. For example, University can be written as Uni, Computer can be written as Comp.
Note main ideas and persepctives : As you listen, focus on each speaker's main ideas and perspectives. But here's the crucial part: look for relationships between what different speakers are saying. Draw lines or use symbols to connect related points from different speakers in your notes.
Look for relationships : Look for relationships between what different speakers are saying. Draw lines or use symbols to connect related points from different speakers in your notes. Why does this matter? The scoring specifically rewards you for exploring relationships between different points of view and synthesizing perspectives.

Speaking strategies

Use your full two minutes to demonstrate your skills. Your summary should:

Start with a short summary of the listening : This is easy as the summary is mentioned at the start of the discussion. For example: "The three speakers were talking about the various challenges they face at university especially with respect to time management"
For each speaker start with the main idea: Since your notes will capture the main idea per speaker, you can then open your summary by introducing the main idea of speaker 1. For example : "So, the first speaker talked about his concerns about his workload; he seemed very concerned and somewhat stressed"
Include relevant supporting details : You can then include relevant supporting details for speaker 1. For example: "He mentioned that he had no consistency in what he does and he had a particular concern about the length of the course and some of the workload. He also mentioned that he had challenges with his computer crashing"
Explicitly highlight different viewpoints : Do the same for speaker 2 and 3 but also make sure to highlight the differences in each speakers viewpoints, agreements or disagreements etc. For example: "The third speaker agreed with much of what was said and also had an issue with procrastination – the same as speaker two"
Flow logically with good connective devices: Use connecting devices to ensure there is good flow between your sentences. Try using cominations of Conjunctions ( and, but) Prepositions ( at, by, to) and Adverbs ( then, also, however ). For example: "The third speaker talked about long-term planning as key, and also multi-tasking as an important attribute, but said that this is sort of challenging to achieve. In the end, the third speaker mentioned...".
Focus on paraphrasing rather than trying to repeat exact words: The goal is showing you understand the discussion and can synthesize different perspectives in your own words.

Don'ts ❌

Don't just list in order who said what. Remember this is a summary.
Add information that is incorrect (every few weeks, she has a whole new schedule when it says the term ends and she needs to get used to a whole new schedule).
Get speakers confused and say speaker 2 said something when it was speaker 1.
Don't try to mention every single point. Summarize the main points.
Speak for too little time. You need to summarize the entire audio.
Jump between ideas without any flow or connection.
Introduce each topic in a mechanical way (topic 1 is, topic 2 is, topic 3...).

Scoring

This task contributes to both your Speaking and Listening scores:

Content Score: Both AI and human evaluators score your content. They're looking for clarity, accuracy, paraphrasing ability, and most importantly—how well you explore relationships between different viewpoints.

Pronunciation and Oral Fluency: Only AI scores this portion, focusing on how clearly you speak and how naturally you deliver your response.

Note: Try not to use memorized templates. The human reviewers are trained to look for these templates, if identified as template usage, PTE advices that the task will be scored zero.

Sample Task & Response

Let's walk through how this works with an actual PTE example about university group assignment challenges. The transcript of a group discussion is provided below.

Note: For the actual exam no transcript will be provided, just the audio recording. You can practice this exact question on our LearnPTE practise platform for free by signing up.

You will hear three people having a discussion. When you hear the beep, summarize the whole discussion. You will have 10 seconds to prepare and 2 minutes to give your response.

Narrator: Two students and a professor are discussing the benefits and challenges of group assignments at university.

Speaker 1: I've been thinking about our group project guidelines, and I'm curious about your experiences with collaborative work. Some students love it, others find it quite challenging. What's your take on group assignments, Sarah?

Speaker 2: Honestly, Professor, it's been a mixed experience for me. On one hand, I've learned so much from working with classmates who have different perspectives and strengths. Like in our marketing project, Tom was brilliant with data analysis, while I focused on the creative presentation. But coordinating schedules and making sure everyone contributes equally can be really stressful.

Speaker 3: I have to agree with Sarah about the coordination issues. I've had projects where one person disappears completely, and the rest of us end up doing their work. It's frustrating because our grades depend on everyone pulling their weight. Sometimes I think individual assignments are just more fair, you know?

Speaker 2: That's exactly what happened in my psychology group last semester, David. One member just stopped responding to messages halfway through. But I've also been in amazing groups where we pushed each other to do better work than any of us could have done alone. The key seems to be getting matched with people who are equally committed.

Speaker 1: Those free-rider situations are definitely problematic, and it's something we try to address with peer evaluations and individual components. But the reality is that most careers involve collaboration. So, learning to work effectively in teams is a crucial skill. The challenge is creating structures that encourage genuine participation from everyone.

Speaker 3: I get why it's important for future careers, but maybe there could be better ways to form groups. Like matching people based on their work styles or commitment levels, rather than just random assignment. I've noticed that when we choose our own groups, we tend to work better together because we already know each other's strengths and reliability.

Speaker 2: That's a good point, David. Self-selected groups do seem to work more smoothly, but I've also learned valuable lessons from working with people I wouldn't normally choose. It's taught me how to communicate with different personality types and manage conflicts, which are definitely real-world skills.

Speaker 1: You're both raising important points about group formation. There's value in both approaches: self-selection for comfort and efficiency, and assigned groups for stretching your collaborative skills. Perhaps a mix throughout your degree program would give you the best of both worlds.

Speaker 2: I think that sounds like a reasonable compromise. Maybe starting with assigned groups early on to build those skills, then moving to more choice as we get better at collaboration. And having clear expectations and consequences might help with the free rider problem too.

Note taking

As discussed above, use the note taking template and break down your notes into key ideas and supporting arguments for each speaker. Shows notes taken for this speaking test.

Notice how you can draw connections between speakers—all three mention coordination stress, both S2 and S3 discuss their past experiences, and all agree that self-assignment or random assignment both have merits and demerits.

Sample good response

Clear topic identification and context setting
Individual speaker perspectives clearly distinguished
Specific details from each contribution
Relationships highlighted (all agree self-selction vs assigned groups have their merits and demerits)
Natural paraphrasing rather than exact word repetition
Logical flow with good connective devices
Comprehensive coverage using the full time effectively

"So two students and a professor are discussing the benefits and challenges of group assignment at the university. And the professor mentions that the some students love group assignments whereas others find it challenging. So she asked these other two students what did they think about the group assignments. Sarah, the first speaker, agrees that, uh, while group assignments are beneficial, she's had a mixed experience with it. Uh, while on on the one hand, she finds it valuable to learn from the different perspectives of all the people involved in the group. Sometimes she mentioned it can be stressful. Um, she mentions of an example where Tom, one of her group partners, was good in data analytics, which worked really well for her. But she finds that coordination is a very stressful issue when it comes to group assignments. The speaker three, David agrees that coordination is a main issue in group assignment. Um, and says that it's especially important because their grades depends on it. Um, and David argues that maybe matching people based on the commitment levels is a better approach rather than sort of assigning it based on random uh order. Speaker two, Sarah, mentions that while it's definitely better if they can match a group based on commitment levels, she's also found that uh being put into groups that she would not normally work with has proven to be valuable for her uh to sort of come out of her comfort zones. Overall, I think they all agree that there is a choice between self selection versus an assign group and both have their merits and demerits. Um, and Sarah mentioned that maybe you start with an assign group first and then move on to a self selected group uh to sort of learn the pros and cons of both.."

How to approach practicing

While the task may seem harder than it actually is, the feeling of intimidation goes away, when you actually try it. It's one of those things that seems way more difficult in theory than it is in practice. You'll have that "aha moment" where you realize you can actually handle this. Here's what to focus on during practice:

Active note-taking while listening
Identifying each speaker's perspective and feelings on the topic
Connecting related points between different speakers
Organizing your thoughts quickly during the 10-second prep time
Speaking naturally and clearly for the full two minutes

LearnPTE platform

Our Summarize Group Discussion module gives you detailed feedback on your task, breaking it down based on content, pronunciation and oral fluency. Give it a try to improve your note taking and response prepartion. Shows notes taken for this speaking test.

Unlike other PTE tasks, this one specifically tests your ability to understand academic discussions—a real skill you'll need in university settings. The three-speaker format and university context are consistent, so once you understand the pattern, you can focus on developing your listening and synthesis skills.

The key is approaching it as a comprehension and synthesis task, not a memory exercise. Focus on understanding the big picture and the relationships between ideas rather than trying to remember every detail.