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OET is an international English language test that assesses the language proficiency of healthcare professionals seeking to register and practice in an English speaking environment. It provides a validated, reliable assessment of all four language skills listening, reading, writing and speaking- with the emphasis on communication in healthcare professional settings.
Occupational English Test OET is an international English language test that assesses the language proficiency of healthcare professionals seeking to register and practice in an English-speaking environment.
OET Listening assess the ability of him/her listening skills, such as identifying specific information, details, gist or speakers purpose. Through note-completion task and multiple choice questions. There are 3 parts that comes under OET Listening
Part A – consultation extracts about 5 minutes each Part A of OET Listening assesses your ability to identify the specific information during a consultation. Firstly you will listen to a previously recorded voice of a health professional consulting a patient and you will complete health professional's note using the information you hear.The health professional can be any one of the 12 professions who can take OET.
Part B – short workplace extracts about 1 minute Part B of OET Listening assesses his/her ability to identify details, gist or purpose of short extracts from health care workplaces. In this test you will have to listen to six recorded audio of health professionals. The audio can be regarding team briefing, handovers or doctor patient conversations and for each question one multiple choice question dialogues.
Part C – presentation extracts - about 5 minutes Part C of OET Listening assesses your ability to follow up recorded presentation or interview on a range of healthcare topics.You will provided with 2 different recordings and have to answer six multiple choice questions for each recordings.
The Listening test is used to check if he/she is capable of a range of listening skills related to health field. It can be regarding identifying specific information,detail,gist,opinion or the speakers purpose.These skills are assesses through note completion task and multiple choice questions. Candiddates perfomance is assessed against an established marking guide.During the marking session, problematic or unforeseen answers are referred to a sub-group of senior assessors for guidance and all papers are double-marked to ensure fairness and consistency. The Listening sub-test is designed to assess a range of listening skills, such as identifying specific information, detail, gist, opinion or the speaker’s purpose. These skills are assessed through note-completion tasks and multiple-choice questions. Assessors who mark the Listening test are qualified and highly trained.
For Part A, Listening assessors use a detailed marking guide which sets out which answers receive marks. Assessors use this guide to decide whether you have provided enough correct information to be given the mark. Assessors are monitored for accuracy and consistency.
The answer provided in OET Listening Test is corrected by OET Trained assessor, these answers are double marked, also these answers are assigned to different OET Trainers to avoid any conflict of interest
Answers from part B and part C are computer and scanned and automatically scored since these are MCQ questions.
OET ReadingOET Reading consists of 3 parts and 42 total questions. The topics will be covered from generic healthcare interest and are therefore accessible to candidates across all professions. All the 3 parts take a total of 60 minutes time for completion.
Part A – Reading task (15 minutes) Part A of OET Reading checks the ability to locate specific information from four short texts in a quick and efficient manner. There will be 20 questions, it consist of short answer question, and fill in the blanks. The 4 short text is related to single healthcare topic and the 20 question should be completed within allocated time period.
Part B of OET Reading checks his/her ability to identify the detail, List or main point of 6 short text sourced from the health care workplace which is 100 to 150 words each. There will be a multiple choice question with 3 options. The topics will be regarding hospital guidelines, manuals or internal communications, such as emails or memos. Part C of OET Reading checks his/her ability to identify detailed meaning and opinion in 2 texts on topics of interest to healthcare professionals which is 800 words each. For each text, you must answer eight four-option multiple choice questions.
Reading Part A (the expeditious reading task) tests your ability to skim and scan quickly across different texts on a given topic in order to locate specific information. For that purpose, Part A is strictly timed and you must complete all 20 question items within the allocated 15 minutes. To complete the task successfully, you will also need to understand the conventions of different medical text types and understand the presentation of numerical and textual information. Reading Part B tests your ability to understand the detail, gist or main point of complex texts commonly found in the healthcare workplace. To complete the task successfully, you will need to identify specific ideas at sentence level. Reading Part C tests your ability to understand the explicit or implied meaning as well as the attitude or opinion presented in a longer text. To complete the task successfully, you will need to identify the relationship between ideas at sentence and paragraph level. Part C also tests your ability to accurately understand lexical references and complex phrases within the text. Assessors who mark the Reading sub-test are qualified and highly trained. Candidate responses are assessed against an established marking guide. During the marking session, problematic or unforeseen answers are referred to a sub-group of senior assessors for guidance.
Strong candidates can adapt their written communication to fit the different scenarios and targets readers they encounter in the test. This involves paying careful attention to the purpose of your letter and the specific case notes in the task you are given on the day. Candidates who or who rely on techniques which worked for other tasks tend not to perform to their full potential in the test. The Writing Test Information Page provides detailed information about how the Writing sub-test is assessed. Your writing will be assessed according to how efficiently and effectively the intended reader is able to retrieve the necessary information from your letter. The language you use, the way you prioritise information and the structure of your letter will need to take this into account. Candidates who make time to check their written work in the test are in a good position to correct avoidable errors. Make a mental checklist of types of error that you tend to make (such as incorrect passive forms or subject-verb agreement) and proofread your work specifically for those. OET Writing tasks are designed to allow you to draw on your knowledge of language which occurs frequently in health professional contexts. It is therefore worth regularly reviewing common expressions to make sure you can produce them appropriately and accurately. OET Writing tests the ability to produce a letter that is appropriate for the situation given the task. It is not necessary to repeat everything from the case notes or to give a chronological account. Be prepared to select and organise the information in a way that informs the reader appropriately and effectively.
The speaking sub-test of the OET is one task that is divided into two separate role-plays. The role-plays will be between you (playing a health professional) and an interlocutor (playing a patient or patient carer). These role-plays will relate to real-life interactions you may have in your specific healthcare field. You will also have a warm-up conversation with the interlocutor before you begin the role-plays, however this conversation will not be assessed. The entire sub-test will take about 15 minutes.
The speaking sub-test consists of 3 parts and will take a total of 20 minutes. First you will have a “warm up” conversation with the interlocutor. The interlocutor is the person who will be your conversation partner for this section of the test, but they are not assessing your performance. The warm-up conversation will not be assessed, and is meant to relax you and get you comfortable with your conversation partner. They will most likely explain to you how the speaking section works and then ask you about your previous work, future plans and interests. Again, this conversation will not count towards your mark, so all you need to do is relax and get comfortable. After you have warmed up, you will be given a role-play card with a scenario on it. The scenario will be similar to a real-life situation you might encounter in your particular profession. For example, if you are a doctor, the scenario will most involve a patient or patient’s carer asking for information, advice and reassurance. Once you have been given the role-play card, you will have 2-3 minutes to read it and prepare yourself to begin. This is the time in which you are allowed to ask your conversation partner to clarify anything you do not understand. You are allowed to ask questions about how the role-play will work and about any of the content you see on the role-play card. You may also write anything you want on the card before you begin. Finally, you will participate in the role-play for about 5 minutes. After you have completed this, you will be given another role-play card and you will repeat the process of reading it, asking any questions you have, and playing it out with your conversation partner.
Have you heard of the expression ‘how long is a piece of string’? It’s a popular British expression meaning the topic in question can’t be given an exact measurement. Deciding how much preparation you need before you’re ready for OET is not an exact measurement. However, there are three key elements that will roughly determine how long you will need to study to reach the OET score you want.
If you have taken another English test within the last 2 years, your results will provide a good indicator of your current level of English. They will also identify your strengths and weaknesses in the 4 skills of Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. If it’s been more than 2 years since you took an English test or studied English, you can take a placement test through one of our Premium Preparation course providers. This will help to determine your current level of English and how much time you will need to improve your skills to achieve the grade you want. If your recent test or placement test results show your current level of English is close to a B grade already, you may only need a few weeks to familiarise yourself with the OET format. On the other hand, if the results show you are a C+ or C grade at the moment, then you will need more time to improve. There are no shortcuts to passing a high-stakes English test. You have to put the time and effort in to get the result you want.
As healthcare professionals, we know many OET candidates are already working within the healthcare field. In addition, many candidates have busy family lives. Finding time for regular study can be hard. While you are no doubt enthusiastic about getting stuck into your preparation, you need to be realistic about how much time you have to prepare for OET. If you are only going to be able to allocate a few hours a week then you will need to prepare for longer.
A big part of success on test day is confidence. Confidence that you have prepared to the best of your ability but also confidence that comes from success in previous test-taking experiences. If you have been unsuccessful in past test experiences, this will have an impact on how you feel on an OET test day. It may mean that you want to spend longer preparing for OET to build up your confidence again and make sure you feel ready for the test.
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