Retell Lecture (RL) is a Speaking task where you listen to a short academic lecture and retell it in your own words using clear language, accurate pronunciation and natural intonation. On this page: an overview of the task, top strategies for note-taking and the 40-second response, sample answers and common mistakes to practise with your trainer, the most repeated 2026 lectures, and a guided task worksheet.
Lecture length:
60–90 seconds
Time to record your response:
40 seconds
Number of these tasks:
2–3
Retell Lecture tests your ability to retell — through speaking — the main points of a short academic lecture you have just heard or watched, using your knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and intonation.
Task
Retell Lecture
Speaking
Listening
Overall
Your voice → analysed by AI + human expert → contributes 13% to Speaking, 13% to Listening and 6% to Overall.
Official PTE School walkthrough — how to answer Retell Lecture.
The screen below is annotated with green markers (1–5) placed right next to the element they describe. Each marker is explained on hover — they cover the timer, instructions, lecture video, recording status box and the Next button.
You will hear a lecture. After listening, in 10 seconds, retell what you have just heard in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response.2Read the task instructions carefully.
Lecture audio
Plays automatically when you start
Audio Recorder
Recording in 10
Skills assessed · 2 strands
Speaking + Listening
Combined score weight
up to2713 + 14 points
This task feeds two separate score strands. The AI evaluates different things for each — see the breakdown below.
Strand
Speaking
up to13points
The AI scorer checks
Fluency
Speaking fluently at a natural speed for the full 40 seconds
Pronunciation
Using clear pronunciation, stress and rhythm
Vocabulary
Using a wide range of academic vocabulary in your own words
Criterion
Organising the retell logically: introductory sentence → main points → relationships → implication / conclusion
Strand
Listening
up to14points
The AI scorer checks
Comprehension
Understanding the overall meaning and purpose of the lecture
Criterion
Identifying main points, examples and supporting details
Comprehension
Understanding the relationships between ideas (cause/effect, contrast, conclusion)
Intonation
Understanding meaning conveyed through the speaker's intonation and stress
Starts with an introductory sentence, giving the main point
Includes plenty of information from the recording
Retells implications or conclusions from the recording
Clearly shows how the ideas are related to each other
Uses accurate pronunciation, including intonation, rhythm and stress
A good summary
It's important to know what a good summary looks like.
Is clearly and logically structured
Uses mostly your own words, rather than whole phrases or sentences from the lecture (use a phrase or two from the lecture if you have to, rather than miss out a point)
When getting ready for this task type, focus on these three habits.
Watch online lectures, TED talks, university podcasts on a wide range of topics. Listen to 60–90 second chunks and retell them aloud in your own words. Cover topics outside your comfort zone — exam lectures can be on anything from biology to economics.
Develop your own abbreviations and symbols so you can capture key words quickly. Practise writing only the main points and signal words (however, in conclusion, the issue is…) — never full sentences.
Learn topic vocabulary, synonyms and collocations. Being able to paraphrase what you heard (instead of repeating it) is the single biggest content-score booster. Practise restating a sentence in 2–3 different ways.
Find online videos (formal talks, discussions or university lectures) or academic podcasts on general topics. Choose ones that give information, but avoid news websites as these are different from what you will hear in the test. Listen to 50–90 seconds of a video and:
Create your own techniques for quick note-taking. Choose your own abbreviations and symbols and practise using them so they become automatic. Practise writing the key words of main ideas and important details.
Practise in an environment with other people talking around you — for example, with the TV and/or radio on. There are likely to be people talking at the same time as you in the test room.
You start with an introductory sentence giving the main point.
You don't dive straight into details without setting the topic.
You retell the ideas in your own words.
You don't repeat whole phrases or sentences from the lecture.
You include the relationships between ideas (cause, contrast, conclusion).
You don't list bullets of facts with no link between them.
You speak for the full 40 seconds.
You don't stop after 15–20 seconds, even if you've run out of notes.
You use academic vocabulary and signal words.
You don't pad with fillers like "um, um, the lecture is about…".
You speak normally — natural pace, normal volume.
You don't rush, mumble or shout into the mic.
This practice item is image + audio (a topic-stimulus image plays alongside the lecture audio). Press Start to run real exam timing — the audio plays, then 10s prep, then 40s to retell. Compare your version with the model below.
You will hear a lecture. After listening, in 10 seconds, retell what you have just heard in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response.
Lecture audio
Plays automatically when you start
Audio Recorder
Recording in 10
Model recording
Listen to a strong sample answer. Notice the introductory sentence, the use of own words and the clear closing point.
The enormous rise of the middle class in certain developing countries is one of the greatest economic successes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This is excellent for the economies of those countries because the middle classes usually earn more than they need to live on, and thus they can save money. It's important that economists understand how these processes work, and thus they need to understand the savings habits of the new middle class. Our research, therefore, aimed to investigate patterns of savings and reasons for savings decisions. The country we chose to focus on was India. We found that, not surprisingly, it was the richer people, especially business owners, who tended to save more. As for the reasons for saving, the number one reason was to provide an income after retirement. Having an income after becoming too old to work was important for savers who wanted to be able to enjoy their older years. And the second most important reason was for family purposes, such as the education and weddings of their children.
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Replay the original Retell Lecture 1 video before reviewing the sample answers below. Compare each speaker's retell against what you actually heard.
You will hear a lecture. After listening, in 10 seconds, retell what you have just heard in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response.
Lecture audio
Plays automatically when you start
Audio Recorder
Recording in 10
An English-speaker's reference answer for Retell Lecture 1 (Health & Food). Click to play the audio, then reveal the transcript to compare.
The speaker said that some health messages about food are confusing. For example, there are debates about whether fat or sugar is bad for you when in fact both are problematic. She said that dietary guidance to the public should shift away from a focus on individual nutrients such as protein and carbohydrate, towards guidelines relating to actual food, for example meat, vegetables or biscuits. Moreover, the issue isn't about deciding which foods to eat or to abstain from. Instead, it's about eating patterns as a whole, and the proportions of the different foods in relation to each other.
Compare responses at C1, B2 and B1 levels. Click any card to listen, reveal the transcript and read examiner feedback.
The speaker said that we should not differentiate between different nutrients, such as protein, carbohydrates and fat, but rather between different foods, such as meat, fish and vegetables, in order to avoid public confusion regarding messages about healthy eating and achieve an understanding of our diet patterns as a whole.
Feedback
According to the speaker, there is public confusion about some messages about food, for example the debate about fat against sugar. Really, both are bad. While science looks at individual nutrients, the message to the public should be about food — meat, vegetables, etc. The important thing is to understand patterns of diets, and how much of each food group to eat.
Feedback
The lecture is about foods. There is a debate about fat and sugar and what we should eat. We should talk more about foods — meat, fish, vegetables and so on. Some people say some foods are allowed and other foods are not allowed.
Feedback
Private to you — tick each item you actually did. Saved on this device only.
These pitfalls apply to most retell tasks — watch the video and read the fix.
Too closeMic too close or off-position · voice distorts
~3 cmHeadset on · mic ~3 cm from the side of mouth
Problem · Many students try to capture every word in their notes. They miss the main idea and panic when the audio stops because their notes are messy and unusable.
Fix · Only capture key words and signal words. Write the main idea first, then 2–3 supporting points and the conclusion. Practise this structure until it's automatic.
Clicking Next while recording → answer cut off
Wait for ‘Completed’, then click Next
Problem · If you finish your retell in 20 seconds, the engine reads it as incomplete content and your Content score drops sharply.
Fix · Plan your retell to fill the full 40 seconds. Add an example, restate a relationship, or finish with an implication. Never click Next early.
Tap play to watch — common pitfalls students make and how to avoid them.
Listen to four of the most repeated Retell Lecture audios in 2026. Each card uses the real exam interface — instructions, lecture audio and the Next button. Take notes and practise retelling each one in 40 seconds.
You will hear a lecture. After listening to the lecture, in 10 seconds, please speak into the microphone and retell what you have just heard from the lecture in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response. — Topic: Sugar
There's sugar in a lot of foods where you don't expect it. And of course, you know, there's lots of sugar in donuts or ice cream or pastries or other things that are sweet, candy of course. But there are other places where you see it and you don't necessarily expect it. So as an example, peanut butter. Here's a list of ingredients from Skippy peanut butter and you see that sugar is the second most common ingredient. Excuse me. You may know from reading food labels that these ingredients in any food label are listed in order of how much there is in the food itself. So sugar comes right after peanuts. Here's another example, beef stew. You wouldn't necessarily expect to find sugar in beef stew, but it's there. Now, it's down the list of ingredients. It's actually toward the end. But if you look at the marketing of this and look at the can, it says, There's fresh potatoes and carrots, but actually there's more sugar in this than there is carrots. And so you wouldn't eat something like beef stew and expect to find this to be the case.
You will hear a lecture. After listening to the lecture, in 10 seconds, please speak into the microphone and retell what you have just heard from the lecture in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response. — Topic: Psychologist Sigmund Freud
Now, for better or worse, we live in a world profoundly affected by Sigmund Freud. If I had to ask you, "Choose a psych— name a famous psychologist," the answer— most of you would be Freud. He's the most famous psychologist ever and he's had a profound influence on the 20th and 21st century. Some biographical information. He was born in the 1850s. He spent most of his life in Vienna, Austria and— but he died in London. And he escaped to London soon after retreating there at the beginning of World War II as the Nazis began to occupy where he lived. He's one of the most famous scholars ever but he's not known for any single discovery. Instead, he's known for the development of an encompassing theory of mind One that he developed over the span of many decades.
You will hear a lecture. After listening to the lecture, in 10 seconds, please speak into the microphone and retell what you have just heard from the lecture in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response. — Topic: Performance of Boys and Girls
You can see that the two charts each give quite a different picture of the performance of boys and girls in the two key subjects of maths and English. It shows that in English, girls consistently outperform boys over a period of 6 years, achieving scores about, uh, 10% above their male peers. There is quite a different picture when we look at the maths results, with no real difference between genders in the results. What is the explanation for these key differences? To answer this question, researchers look at biological and cognitive factors and a range of social factors. The interaction between these different components in early childhood development are seen as maintained and reinforced in the school context, and this leads to distinct gender patterns of behavior in skills with direct consequences for school performance and achievement. The argument uses this evidence to show that biological factors, such as patterns of cognitive development, are closely linked to social factors, such as learned gender categories. These cognitive skills are learned both preschool and subsequently at school, supported by the responses of teachers creating a reinforcement of patterns.
You will hear a lecture. After listening to the lecture, in 10 seconds, please speak into the microphone and retell what you have just heard from the lecture in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response. — Topic: Measuring Food
I'm a dietitian and I work in clinical weight loss research. Accurately estimating portion size is critical in research or real-world settings. For example, if you're trying to watch your weight and you're out to dinner and you're presented with a bowl of food, there's no really good way to actually estimate how much you're eating unless you're going to whip some scales out of your bag. So we wanted to find a more objective way for people to quantify what they're eating when they're out and about. I came up with a more hands-on approach. We got people to measure the dimensions of the food using the width of their fingers, and remembering back to primary school maths, we used the geometric volume formulas to estimate the weight of the food. To show you how this works, I've ordered a piece of lasagne, and that's my box, a glass of wine, and that's my cylinder, and I'm feeling pretty healthy, so I ordered some watermelon for dessert, and that's my wedge. So this lasagne is 7 by 5 by 4 fingers. In the future, I see this method being incorporated into smartphone applications. So you put your finger widths in along with your height and your weight, and the app will do all of the calculations for you, and then you've got a more accurate way to estimate the portion size.
You have three seconds before you listen to the recording to quickly look at the image on the screen. Use this time to think about the vocabulary you might hear. This will give you an idea of the topic of the lecture and help you predict what you will hear when the recording begins.
You only have 40 seconds to speak and make sure that you include all the main points of the lecture. If you repeat ideas, correct yourself or hesitate, you will use up valuable time and lose score points. So keep talking and ignore any mistakes that you make.
Your Retell Lecture score combines Listening + Speaking traits. Open the cards below to see what raises and lowers your score, with full band descriptors.
Content for speaking tasks is rated on whether you say the right things — the words from the prompt (Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence) or the right ideas with detail (Describe Image, Retell Lecture, Respond to a Situation). For Describe Image / Retell Lecture / SGD / RTAS, a human also reviews Content.
Coach tip · If you can’t see a number on the chart, describe the trend instead — never invent data.
Step 1 of 12
Tick the statements you believe are TRUE about how the Retell Lecture task works on screen.
Step 2 of 12
Note-taking is very important because you probably won't remember everything you hear. Look at the two sets of notes below. Which one is a good example of note-taking? Why? What is wrong with the other set?
1. Which set (a or b) is the good example, and why?
2. What is wrong with the other set?
Step 3 of 12
Read actions 1–16 and decide where each one belongs: Before the task / While listening to the lecture / Before re-telling the lecture / While re-telling the lecture. Tick each action once you've placed it.
Step 4 of 12
Number a–d from 1 (first) to 4 (last) so that your retell has a clear structure.
1. a. The first main point — order:
2. b. An introductory sentence — order:
3. c. A conclusion — order:
4. d. The second main point — order:
Step 5 of 12
5.1. Listen to a lecture and read the transcript of its re-telling. Choose the correct linking words and phrases.
🎧 Model audio
The speaker was talking about the impact of women's participation on a country's development. ¹ Even though / Even so, women's participation could be greater, progress has been made everywhere. ² It is clear that / Fortunately, women being independent and having skills leads to better resources and conditions and more opportunities for girls to access education. ³ The conclusion is that / Finally, this will have great implications for the women of the future.
1. ¹ Even though / Even so:
2. ² It is clear that / Fortunately:
3. ³ The conclusion is that / Finally:
Step 6 of 12
Look again at the parts of a response in Exercise 4. Match a–d in Exercise 4 with the correct sentence in the transcript in Exercise 5.1.
1. a. The first main point — sentence from 5.1:
2. b. An introductory sentence — sentence from 5.1:
3. c. A conclusion — sentence from 5.1:
4. d. The second main point — sentence from 5.1:
Step 7 of 12
In the Retell Lecture task you are scored on Content, Fluency and Pronunciation. For each trait, write C, F or P next to it.
1. 1. Rhythm —
2. 2. Description of developments —
3. 3. Use of standard English sounds —
4. 4. Hesitation —
5. 5. Pace of speech —
6. 6. Ease of understanding each word —
7. 7. Appropriate words and phrases —
Step 8 of 12
Before you listen, look at the image and predict the topic and the vocabulary you might hear.
1. Predicted topic of the lecture:
2. Vocabulary you expect to hear:
Step 9 of 12
Listen to the lecture, then record yourself describing the image. Check that your intonation sounds natural. Remember: you only have 40 seconds.
🎧 Model audio
1. Your notes (key words only):
2. Self-check — was your intonation natural? What would you change?
Step 10 of 12
Listen to this learner's retell, then answer the questions below.
🎧 Model audio
1. 1. What main points did the test taker cover?
2. 2. Did the test taker miss any major points?
3. 3. Did the test taker cover everything you noted when you listened to the lecture?
4. 4. Did the test taker repeat any information?
5. 5. Were there any hesitations or false starts? What effect did these have?
6. 6. Did the test taker make any grammar or vocabulary mistakes?
7. 7. How could the re-telling be improved?
Step 11 of 12
Reveal the transcript of the test-taker's response and check your answers from 7.3.
In this picture, it is a rocket, and it is, it is a rocket which can head for the space station which is built by Russian 30 years ago. And what is, what is drawing our attention is the backfield. Half a century ago, the Russian has have the technology to support the rocket.
1. Updated answers / corrections after reading the transcript:
Step 12 of 12
Use your notes from 7.2. Time yourself — you have only 40 seconds. After recording, tick the statements that are true for you.