PTE Listening: Multiple Choice, Choose Multiple Answers
A recording with several options, more than one correct, and negative marking — a wrong selection cancels a right one. The audio plays once, so the preparation time before it starts is the whole of your advantage.
Read the options first
Unlike the reading version, you cannot return to the source. Whatever you have not read before the audio starts, you will be reading while missing the recording.
- Read every option in the time before the audio.
- Reduce each to one word you can recognise when you hear it.
- Tick as you hear support; do not wait to decide at the end.
- Then remove anything you ticked on a single word rather than on a claim.
Given the penalty
- Select only what you heard supported. Two confident selections beat four hopeful ones.
- An option whose words appeared in the recording is not thereby correct — speakers mention and reject.
- The minimum score for an item is zero, so caution cannot cost you below that.
This and Highlight Incorrect Words are the only negatively marked items in PTE. Everywhere else, answer everything.
Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers — FAQs
2 questions
No. Every PTE listening item plays once.
No, which is why each must be judged on its own.
More listening question types
Summarise Spoken Text
50–70 words, 10 minutes
Fill in the Blanks
Type the missing words as you listen
Highlight Correct Summary
Pick the paragraph that matches
Multiple Choice, Single Answer
One answer, no penalty
Select Missing Word
Predict how the recording ends
Highlight Incorrect Words
Negative marking applies
Write from Dictation
The best-value item in the test
Sources
Written from the test board's own published material and checked on 1 October 2026.