Hi everyone,
Just sharing you my first PTE exam experience...
I took the PTE exam last Friday and received my scores this morning. Before taking the exam, I already had a feeling that I will never pass the speaking section, but I was still optimistic, nonetheless. But sadly, all the hopes were shattered when I saw my scores in the speaking section. Not only were they low, they were dismal.
<b class="Bold">Communicative Skills scores:</b>
L:72 R: 61 <b class="Bold">S:33</b> W:81
<b class="Bold">Enabling Skills scores:</b>
Grammar 90; <b class="Bold">Oral Fluency 10; Pronunciation: 31;</b> Spelling:90; Vocabulary:90; Written Discourse:90...
I knew I did well in other sections of the test. And I believe if not for my dismal Oral Fluency and Pronunciation scores, I would have gotten the proficient scores or even superior scores overall. The two sections obviously affected the speaking marks, and also somehow pulled down my reading and listening scores, with it, as some parts are related to speaking (read aloud, repeat sentence, re-tell lecture, etc).
And I could only attribute these low speaking scores sadly to the fact that I have a speech deficiency. I have a congenital deficiency called hypernasality, a disorder that causes abnormal resonance in the voice due to increased airflow, which causes the production of nasal sounds ("ngo-ngo" in Tagalog). I have this condition since my cleft palate has not yet been fully fixed.
Although I am able to converse in English well enough for other people to understand my speech, this obviously is not the case in the PTE exam, as proven in my case, the computer cannot understand my quite nasal speech. And to add insult to injury, I am already living and working here in Australia (under 457 visa) for the last 3 years, and to my belief, I am able to effectively communicate and express myself despite my slight speech problem.
I already emailed PTE to explain my situation and asked them for some advice or even reconsideration. I told them that while I could just re-take the exam, I expressed genuine concern that the computer will never grasp my speech and that I will just keep getting low scores, despite the number of tries.
I asked if there had been a similar case to mine, and if so, how did they handle it. I am hoping to receive a response within the coming week.
This whole experience is quite frustrating and depressing on my end, but I am keeping my hopes high as I know this is just one minor hurdle to achieve my Aussie dream.
Cheers!