Are essay writing in the IELTS and PTE the same?

In general, essay writing for both IELTS and PTE exams is very much the same; however, in the PTE exam, you don’t need to worry about the essay as much as you need to worry about the IELTS. In fact, for most of the candidates appearing for the IELTS, their writing module is worth their full exam fees as they usually lag in writing only, although they score 7 plus in other modules easily.

The good thing about PTE is that you don’t have to worry much in terms of essay writing. You can use fixed templates with a few words here and there and get the job done. Since the time duration is only 20 minutes to write an essay in PTE, you don't have much of a choice.

In the PTE Academic, you just need to write an argumentative essay of between 200- 300 words in 20 minutes (Write Essay)

• Summarize a block of text into a single sentence in 10 minutes (Summarize Written Text)
• Summarize a spoken lecture into 70 words in 10 minutes (Summarize Spoken Text)

In IELTS Academic you must:

• Describe a graph or process in at least 150 words in 20 minutes (IELTS Writing Task 1)
• Write a 250-word essay presented in various formats in 40 minutes (IELTS Writing Task 2)

PTE Write Essay vs IELTS Writing Task 2

Comparing the essays is the most obvious because both tasks are the biggest and most time-consuming. There are multiple differences between the PTE Write essay and IELTS Writing Task 2. We have discussed the differences in the table below.

In PTE Write Essay, the question prompts differ slightly, candidates can always use the same structure for all of their essays. The structure of the essay has a massive impact on your overall grade. IELTS Writing Task 2 hits you with various question types as discussed above. Candidates need to improve their typing skills.

Are essay writing in the IELTS and PTE the same?

It is unjust to compare IELTS Writing Task 1, where you need to describe a graph in at least 150 words, whereas in PTE you need to summarize written text where you have to write a single sentence of anywhere between 5 and 70 words. In the case of IELTS, there is a formula for IELTS Writing Task 1 that makes it far simpler. IELTS helps students to learn using the modal verbs. 

At first, the candidates need to plan then make a structure and write the body appropriately. In case they went for the IELTS Academic without a formula for Writing Task 1 then they might get a big surprise as

A) you would not know what to write

B) you would waste a lot of time

There’s no doubt that IELTS Writing Task 1 is more difficult and challenging than the other two PTE writing tasks – Summarize Written / Spoken Text. However, without that formula, candidates won’t be able to score above IELTS 7.  IELTS and PTE have many similarities like vocabulary between PTE and IELTS. The increase in IELTS vocabulary helps with a variety of words and phrases that can be used in different parts of the IELTS Exam. The increase in Vocabulary also helps candidates in PTE Examination. There are very few similarities as stated below:

Therefore, when it comes to PTE vs IELTS, it can be stated that both of them have equal difficulty levels. Unfortunately, the essay writing for both the IELTS and PTE are not the same. They both differ immensely on various points. IELTS grammar is a very important part of the IELTS Exam. 

The content length required for both IELTS and PTE is different. For PTE essay writing you need to write 200-300 words on any given topic, whereas in the case of IELTS the total duration is 60 minutes with task 1 having a 150-word count and task 2 having a 250-word count.

The marking criteria for the PTE are much different from the IELTS. As PTE, it will also score you separately for the written discourse and spelling mistakes.

Apart from this, partial scoring is done in PTE, whereas in the IELTS all the sections are scored, as individuals.