PTE Describe Image: A 40-Second Method for Every Graph Type

Forty seconds, an image you have never seen, and a microphone that opens whether you are ready or not. Describe Image is the task students most want a script for, and the task where a script now does the most damage.

Why scripts stopped working

Since 7 August 2025 a human expert reviews the Content score on seven question types. An opening like "the given image illustrates information about various categories over a period of time" fits every image ever shown, which means it describes none of them. Delivered fluently it still earns fluency and pronunciation marks. It earns very little content.

What you need instead is not a script but an order — a reliable sequence of things to look for, filled with whatever is actually on the screen.

The order that works for everything

1. What it is — chart type and subject, taken from the title and axis labels.
2. The extremes — the highest and the lowest.
3. The movement — what rises, what falls, what stays flat.
4. One comparison — the relationship between two things on the chart.
5. One closing observation — the overall pattern, in a single clause.

Five moves, roughly eight seconds each. You will not always finish all five, and that is fine. The first three carry most of the marks.

Bar chart

Read the axis labels out loud as part of your first sentence. Then the tallest bar, the shortest bar, and one comparison between two bars.

"This bar chart shows monthly electricity use in four districts. Sylhet is highest at around 90 units. Barisal is lowest at about 40. Sylhet uses more than twice what Barisal does."

Line graph

Lines are about direction over time. Say the time range, then the direction of each line, then where they cross or diverge.

Turning points are worth marking — the year something stops rising and starts falling is the most informative thing on most line graphs.

Pie chart

Proportions, not values. Largest slice, smallest slice, and whether anything dominates. If there are two pies, the comparison between them is the whole point of the question.

Map

Orient first: what place, and what is being shown about it. Then use direction words — north, south, east, west, centre — rather than pointing words like "here" and "this part", which carry no information in audio.

If the map shows change over two periods, say what was there before and what is there now.

Process diagram

A sequence, so describe it as one. Say how many stages there are, then walk them in order with sequence words — first, then, after that, finally. Do not try to explain why the process works; describe what it does.

Photograph

The rarest type and the one that catches people out, because there is no data to fall back on. Say what the setting is, who or what is in it, what is happening, and one detail. Keep it concrete.

The habits that cost marks

• Running out at 25 seconds. Silence is scored. Have your closing observation ready as a filler that is still content.
• Reading every number. Nobody has time. Two or three specific figures are plenty; the rest is pattern.
• Hedging. "It seems like it might possibly be showing" wastes four seconds and says nothing. State what you see.
• Stopping to correct yourself. As in every speaking task, going back costs more than the original error.
• Saying nothing because you do not understand the chart. Describe what is physically on the screen. A description of the wrong interpretation still scores far above silence.

How to practise

Set a 40-second timer. Open any chart — a newspaper graphic, a report, anything. Speak, recorded, without preparing. Play it back and ask one question only: could someone who cannot see this image picture it from what I said?

If the answer is no, you were speaking in generalities. Do it again with the axis labels in your first sentence.

Vocabulary worth having ready

Not sentences — single words, so you never stall searching for one. Keep these within reach:

• Rising: increased, climbed, rose steadily, grew sharply, peaked.
• Falling: declined, dropped, fell sharply, decreased gradually, bottomed out.
• Steady: remained stable, levelled off, stayed flat, changed little.
• Comparing: more than double, roughly half, the highest, the lowest, considerably more than.
• Sequencing: initially, then, after that, by the end, finally.

Thirty words in total. That is the entire vocabulary load of this task, and knowing them cold is what lets you spend your forty seconds on the image rather than on word-searching.

Common questions

What if i do not understand the chart

Describe what is physically there. Chart type, labels, biggest, smallest. You do not need to interpret the data correctly to score well on description.

Is it bad to finish early

Finishing at 35 seconds with everything said is fine. Finishing at 20 and then sitting in silence is not. If you run dry, add a comparison or restate the overall pattern.

Should i say every number on the chart

No. Two or three specific figures prove you read the chart. The rest of your time is better spent on direction and comparison.

Do i need to give an opinion or a reason

No. The task is description. Explaining why a trend happened is invention, and it uses seconds you need.

Ten of these a day for a fortnight will move the task further than any amount of template memorisation. At Language Academy Bangladesh in Dhanmondi, Dhaka, we run exactly this drill in small batches with the recordings reviewed in the room. Book a free consultation to sit in on one.