The Pearson Test of English Academic is one of the fastest English exams available, two hours, one chair, AI scoring, results in your inbox before the weekend. We coach Nigerians in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, and live online, for the exact score their university, employer or professional body asks for. No long waits. Clear, fast results.
Score reports typically arrive within 48 hours of your test.
One of the biggest reasons Nigerian candidates choose PTE Academic is turnaround time. Pearson releases your scaled score typically within 48 hours, and often the same evening. When an admission or application deadline is close, fast results can be the difference between meeting the intake and missing it.
Practise the question types and you know exactly what to expect on test day.
PTE Academic is scored by Pearson's automated speech-recognition and writing-analytics engine, which applies the same criteria to every candidate. The scoring is consistent and the question types are predictable, so once you have practised the format you know exactly what to expect on test day.
One score, accepted by over 3,500 universities and institutions.
PTE Academic is accepted by over 3,500 universities and colleges worldwide along with professional bodies and employers. If you are applying to several universities, one PTE sitting covers all of your applications. The score report is valid for two years from your test date, long enough to apply and get admitted.
Pearson grades PTE Academic using a scoring engine called PTE Insight that assesses oral fluency, pronunciation, content coverage, formal language and written discourse on quantitative axes. Our entire curriculum is built around those axes. When we drill Read Aloud, we are not teaching you to read aloud, we are teaching you to hit the fluency-and-pronunciation thresholds the engine is listening for. The difference shows up in your score report.
Before your first tutorial, you sit a full 2-hour mock test on PTE-replica software running the same task interface, the same timers and a calibrated AI score model. You get a section-by-section report on day one, Speaking, Writing, Reading, Listening, and we build your study plan from your actual gaps. No generic syllabus. No one-size lecture hall.
We cap PTE cohorts at twelve candidates. Too small to hide in, too large to be lonely. Sessions run six evenings a week at our Ikeja (Lagos), Central Business District (Abuja) and Rumuomasi (Port Harcourt) centres, plus a parallel live-online stream for candidates in Ibadan, Owerri, Asaba, Enugu, Jos, Benin City, Calabar, Uyo, Warri or anywhere our office has not yet opened. Same coaches, same material, same Pearson-replica practice software.
We are not selling motivation; we are selling a score. If you complete the full programme, every class, every mock, every drill log, and your Pearson result comes back below your declared target (65, 79 or whatever your programme asks for), the next cohort is on the house. No questions about whether you "tried hard enough." Either the system delivers or we retrain you until it does.
The longest stretch, and where Nigerian candidates can gain or lose the most marks. You will read into a microphone, retell what you heard, summarise written passages and draft an academic essay, back-to-back, on one timer.
Five task types covering academic vocabulary, sentence ordering, fill-in-the-blanks and multiple choice. The catch: reading also feeds your overall fluency score via the integrated tasks below it.
Audio plays once. No replay. No second chance. You will hear a mix of British, American, Australian and South African voices. Train your ear for the global academic accent before test day.
PTE's speech engine rewards clear, continuous, evenly-paced speech. Reduce long hesitations and fillers, and read aloud at a steady 110 to 130 words per minute with short, controlled pauses.
Repeat Sentence is worth disproportionate marks because it feeds Speaking and Listening scores. The trick: human memory is recency-biased, you will remember the end. Anchor on the final three words first, work backwards in your head, deliver the whole sentence. Practice with our drill kit until it is automatic.
The essay engine rewards structure, lexical range and grammar density, not creativity. We give you a fill-in-the-blank essay skeleton that hits all three on any prompt, in any order, in under 20 minutes. Stop writing from scratch. Memorise the skeleton, practise plugging in prompt-specific content, and walk in with one less variable.
The first paragraph of a Re-order task never begins with "It", "This", "They" or "Such", those pronouns require an antecedent. Find the paragraph that introduces a noun the others reference, plant it as paragraph one, and the rest cascades. This single rule turns a 30-second exercise into a five-second one.
Three sentences. Each one scored on every correct word. This single task type carries more weight than the entire MCQ section combined. Yet most candidates use it as a warm-down because it comes last. Drill it first. Drill it most. Get to the point where you can transcribe a 12-word sentence on first hearing, the rest of Listening becomes secondary.
The first task, Personal Introduction, is unscored. Use those 30 seconds to test your microphone level by speaking at the volume you intend to use for the next two hours. Too quiet and the engine misses syllables. Too loud and it clips and over-counts hesitations. Pearson VUE staff at the Lagos and Abuja centres can re-seat you if mic quality is poor, ask, do not just hope.
For candidates with a test date already booked and a deadline counting down in days. Compressed, intense, no fluff.
The full Mafit method: diagnostic, build, drill, mock, retest, ship. Built for candidates targeting a high score for competitive programmes.
Private coaching with a senior tutor. For candidates aiming for the top of the scale for medical licensing, professional registration or aviation English certification.
Pearson runs PTE Academic at official test centres in Nigeria, including Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and Kaduna. We coach in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, with live online cohorts for everywhere else the test takes you to a neighbouring state.
3rd Floor, MAN House, 77 Obafemi Awolowo Way, Ikeja. PTE practice on computers with individual booth headsets, set up like the real test room.
5th Floor, Unity Bank Towers, Plot 785, Herbert Macaulay Way, Central Business District. Full computer lab, 12-person cap.
Riz Plaza, Plot 19, Stadium Road, Rumuomasi. We run weekend intensive cohorts here twice a month. Mid-week is online with full equipment loan.
Our online cohort runs the exact same curriculum as our Lagos classroom, same coaches, same mock schedule, same Speaking diagnostic. The booth headset and microphone ship to your address two days before kick-off.
Mafit launched its PTE programme this year, so we don't have a long alumni list to wave around. What we have are real numbers about the test, the curriculum, and what a PTE Academic score is accepted for.
Here is the full bundle that lands in your portal the same hour your registration is confirmed.
Everything we use in our Lagos and Abuja classrooms, uploaded to your account on day one. Designed to be opened on a phone at the Yaba bus park or a laptop at home in Asaba. No physical books to wait three weeks for.
The practice materials get you familiar. The live sessions get you scoring. Everything below happens with a coach watching your screen, your face, and your waveform in real time.
Eight categories. Over forty answers. We cover both PTE Academic and PTE Core. If you are weighing up Pearson Test of English as a Nigerian, the answer is probably below.
Pearson Test of English (PTE) is a fully computer based English language proficiency exam developed by Pearson PLC. It tests four skills, Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening, through an integrated, AI scored format. There are two main versions, PTE Academic and PTE Core, each built for a different purpose.
Both versions are fully available in Nigeria. Pearson runs authorised test centres in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and Kaduna, with new sittings opening almost every week. The test is recognised by over 3,500 universities and institutions worldwide.
For Nigerian candidates preparing for university admission or professional registration, PTE has become a popular choice over the past three years. Results land within 48 hours, scoring is done by AI for consistency, and you can re-sit as often as you need.
PTE Academic is the version for university admission, professional registration and most study routes. It uses academic vocabulary and the familiar 10 to 90 scale.
PTE Core is a general English test with everyday rather than academic content, used where an organisation specifically asks for it.
If you are applying to a university anywhere in the world, you sit PTE Academic. If an organisation has asked you specifically for PTE Core, you sit PTE Core. Mafit coaches both in separate streams.
Pearson sets the bar loosely. You must be at least 16 years old on the test date. Candidates under 18 need a signed parental consent form, downloadable from the Pearson PTE website. You must hold a valid international passport on the test date. This is non negotiable in Nigeria. The test centres will not accept a national ID card, voter's card, driver's licence or NIN slip as primary identification.
There is no academic prerequisite. You do not need a degree, a school certificate, or even WAEC results to sit PTE. You do not need to take any other English test first. You do not need a sponsor. You do not need to be a Nigerian citizen. Foreign nationals resident in Nigeria can sit too, as long as their passport is valid.
You can re take the test as often as you want, with a minimum gap of five days between sittings.
Three reasons come up in every diagnostic session we run in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.
Speed. PTE results land in your inbox within 48 hours in most cases. Pearson's official promise is "within 5 business days" but 24 to 48 hours is the norm. For an applicant racing a deadline, PTE's faster turnaround is a real advantage.
Fairness. PTE is scored 100% by AI against fixed acoustic and linguistic models. Because the scoring is automated, the same criteria are applied to every candidate, which many people find reassuring for the Speaking section.
Acceptance. PTE Academic is accepted by every Australian university, 99% of UK universities, all New Zealand universities, and a growing list of US schools including Harvard, Yale, INSEAD, Trinity Dublin, NUS Singapore and TUM Munich.
The PTE exam in Nigeria is computer based but taken in a physical test centre, not from your laptop at home. You arrive at the Pearson centre in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan or Kaduna, present your passport, and sit in front of a Pearson supplied workstation with a noise cancelling headset and microphone.
Pearson previously offered PTE Academic Online, a fully at home version with remote proctoring via webcam. Most institutions do not accept it, so the centre based version is the one to book. Do not pay for the at home version unless your receiving institution has confirmed in writing that they accept it.
Pearson operates five official PTE test centres in Nigeria, and they handle both PTE Academic and PTE Core sittings.
There is currently no PTE test centre in Owerri, Enugu, Asaba, Benin City, Calabar, Uyo, Warri or Jos. Candidates from these states typically book the nearest centre and travel in. At Mafit we help our Port Harcourt based students book their preferred slot.
Registration happens entirely online through the official Pearson PTE website at pearsonpte.com. The exact steps:
Mafit students get a booking concierge as part of the cohort fee. We walk you through the registration on a screen share call so no passport details get mis keyed.
For Lagos and Abuja, two to three weeks ahead is usually enough. These centres run almost daily and slots refresh continuously. For Ibadan aim for three to four weeks ahead. For Kaduna, book a minimum of one month ahead because that centre only runs sittings on selected dates.
If you are targeting an admission or application deadline, give yourself at least three weeks between test date and deadline so you have buffer for a re sit if your first score falls short.
Avoid booking your test for the week of any major Nigerian public holiday. Eid, Christmas, Independence Day. The centres often close on those days and rescheduling at short notice is painful.
Yes, but the rules depend on how far out you act.
The cancellation window opens at 23:59 in your registered Pearson account's time zone, which for Nigerian registered accounts is West Africa Time (WAT). Do not cut it close. If you cancel at 00:01 on the morning of the 14th day before your test, you will be charged the late fee.
Year round, Abuja tends to have the shortest wait. Usually 5 to 10 days out. Lagos is heavily booked but releases new slots almost daily, so refreshing the calendar every morning often surfaces a 7 to 14 day window. Ibadan is the slowest of the Southern centres. Expect 3 to 4 weeks. Kaduna publishes its full schedule monthly, so check at the start of every month.
If you are in a real rush, book Abuja or Lagos, whichever shows a slot first, and do not shop around for your "preferred" date.
Book through Pearson directly. Every time.
There is no legitimate "agent" or "registration centre" in Nigeria that has access to slots Pearson does not. Anyone claiming a special pipeline, and charging you ₦50,000 to ₦100,000 above the standard fee for it, is reselling slots they booked on the standard public calendar and pocketing the spread.
If you book through a third party and the booking has any mismatch with your passport details (wrong middle name, wrong date of birth, wrong passport number), Pearson will not accept you at the centre on test day. You lose the fee and the slot. We have watched it happen.
Use the Pearson PTE website. Pay Pearson directly. Save the confirmation email. That is it.
PTE costs ₦270,000 when you register through Mafit, for both PTE Academic and PTE Core. You pay in naira, by bank transfer or online in your portal, and we complete your Pearson booking for you.
Preparation is priced separately: the Mafit PTE cohorts run from ₦185,000 to ₦420,000, depending on the track you choose.
Yes. Registering through Mafit gives you a fixed naira price of ₦270,000, confirmed before you pay, and Pay Small Small lets you spread it. The price you are quoted is the price you pay.
For a realistic Nigerian candidate going from "I want to sit PTE" to "I have my target score in hand," budget roughly:
Total realistic budget: ₦455,000 to ₦740,000 from cold start to certified score, before any re sit. Less if you nail it first time. More if you sit three times.
Pearson itself runs occasional 10% promo codes, typically around World Education Day in January, World Teachers' Day in October, and Black Friday week in November. Subscribe to Pearson's PTE Insights newsletter (free) to be alerted to these.
Mafit runs its own coaching discounts. Code MAFIT currently knocks ₦35,000 off the Standard Cohort. We do not discount the Pearson test fee. That goes directly to Pearson and we have no margin to give back.
Genuine PTE scholarships in Nigeria are rare. The British Council Nigeria sometimes sponsors a handful of full PTE fee waivers for STEM track women applying to UK universities. Those are advertised through the British Council's social channels. Be very wary of any other "PTE scholarship" advert. Most are recruitment fronts that end up charging more than the test fee in disguised admin charges.
No. The PTE fee is non refundable on the basis of your score. Pearson is selling you a test, not a result. If you score 58 when you needed 79, your only options are:
This is one of the reasons we built the Mafit free retake guarantee into the Standard Cohort. If you sit the test, miss your target and meet our preparation criteria, we cover one full re coaching cycle at no cost. Pearson's test fee remains your responsibility.
PTE Academic uses the Global Scale of English (GSE), a scale from 10 to 90 where 10 is roughly absolute beginner and 90 is native level academic fluency. You get five scores on your score report. An Overall score (your headline number), and four Communicative Skills scores for Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening, each also on the 10 to 90 scale. The report also shows six Enabling Skills scores (Grammar, Oral Fluency, Pronunciation, Spelling, Vocabulary, Written Discourse) for diagnostic purposes only. Universities ignore these.
PTE Core uses its own scale. Same four communicative skills, same overall score structure.
In both cases the scoring is fully automated. There is no human examiner. Your spoken responses are analysed by Pearson's Ordinate speech recognition engine. Written responses are scored by a natural language processing model trained on hundreds of thousands of graded essays.
Pearson's official promise is "within 5 business days." In practice, results for Nigerian tested candidates (both PTE Academic and PTE Core) land in your Pearson account within 24 to 48 hours of the test for the vast majority of cases. Occasionally a sitting will take 3 to 5 days if Pearson is auditing the recordings for any anomaly.
You will receive an email when your score report is ready. Log into your Pearson PTE account, download the PDF, and from the same dashboard send the score directly to the universities and organisations you have targeted. Pearson includes unlimited free score sends, which is genuinely useful.
PTE scores are valid for two years (24 months) from the test date for most universities and organisations. Some set their own rules, so always check with the institution you are applying to.
Practical advice: do not sit PTE more than 12 months before your admission or application deadline. The 24 month window sounds long but applications drag, and you do not want to be re sitting at the last minute.
It depends entirely on what you need it for.
If you are aiming for a competitive postgraduate programme, aim as high as you can. Mafit coaches every candidate toward the top of the scale.
Yes. As many times as you like. The minimum gap between sittings is five days, and Pearson does not cap the total number of attempts in a year. You pay the full test fee for each sitting.
That said, re sitting without changing anything about your preparation is a waste of money. Most Nigerian candidates who score below their target in the first sitting do so for a specific reason, usually Speaking pace (too fast or too slow), Write from Dictation accuracy, or Re order Paragraphs logic. A one week targeted intervention on the specific weak section can move your overall score by 8 to 12 points. Sitting again immediately with no intervention typically moves it by 1 to 3 points.
Two items, no exceptions:
You may not bring: phones, smartwatches, fitness trackers, headphones, notebooks, pens, water bottles, food, jackets with pockets, sunglasses, or any electronic device. Most centres provide secure lockers for personal items. Anything paper related (notes, even blank paper) will be confiscated and could void your test.
You will be photographed and biometrically scanned (palm vein) at check in. Pearson uses palm vein recognition to prevent test impersonation.
The full sequence at a typical Lagos or Abuja Pearson centre:
One optional 10 minute break between the Reading section and the Listening section. That is it. The first 90+ minutes is one continuous block with no scheduled break.
If you absolutely need to use the bathroom mid section, raise your hand for the proctor. The timer will continue running and you will lose that time on whatever task is on screen. We strongly recommend going before the test starts and again during the official break.
Hydrate moderately the morning of the test. Do not down a litre of water at breakfast and try to power through.
Raise your hand immediately. Do not try to fix it yourself. The proctor will pause your test, troubleshoot the hardware, and reset your station if needed. The clock is paused during the fix.
If a hardware fault causes you to miss responses, you can request a full test re take at no cost from Pearson. File a complaint within 7 days. We have seen this granted multiple times for Lagos and Abuja candidates.
Do the microphone fit check seriously. Speak normally. The volume indicator should sit in the green zone. If it is red or barely registering, ask for the headset to be repositioned or replaced before Personal Introduction starts. Once the real test begins, fixing it costs you time.
Yes, and it is one of the single biggest shocks for first time candidates. The Speaking section starts at roughly the same time for all candidates in the room, which means while you are recording your Read Aloud, the person two stations away is also speaking. Their voice will leak through your headset.
This is intentional on Pearson's part. They want you to focus on your own microphone signal, which is what the AI scores. Train for this in practice. Play background chatter audio while doing your Read Aloud drills. Mafit students get a dedicated "PTE Speaking under noise" module precisely for this.
Do not slow down to listen. Do not get distracted. Do not repeat words. The scoring algorithm is acoustically isolating your voice. The other voices are environmental noise.
Three sections, 20 unique task types, two hours total:
PTE Core has a slimmer structure. It drops the academic Summarise Written Text and Summarise Spoken Text in favour of simpler workplace style tasks, and shortens the test to around 1 hour 30 minutes overall. The skill being tested is the same. The reading material is just less dense.
The order within each section is randomised, and several task types contribute to multiple skill scores. For example, Re tell Lecture scores both Speaking and Listening. This is what "integrated skills testing" means in practice.
Write from Dictation (WfD) is the single heaviest task in the entire test. It alone contributes around 35 to 40% of your Listening score and a meaningful chunk of your Writing (spelling) score. There are typically 3 to 4 WfD items in your test, each worth massive marks per word correctly written.
The runners up by score density are:
If you only had time to drill four task types, drill those four. The remaining 15 task types matter, but you will never lose your target on Re order Paragraphs while nailing WfD.
The Read Aloud task gives you a short academic passage (50 to 60 words), a 30 to 40 second prep window to look at it, and then 30 to 40 seconds to read it aloud. The algorithm scores three things:
Critical technique. Finish the sentence smoothly even if you stumble mid way. The algorithm dislikes restarts more than minor errors.
The Write Essay task asks for "200 to 300 words" in 20 minutes. The optimal target is 270 to 290 words. Below 200 you get heavy penalties. Above 300 the algorithm starts to ignore the excess and you have burnt time you could have spent proofreading.
The optimal structure for the highest scoring PTE essay is a five paragraph template:
Linking phrases (furthermore, on the contrary, in conclusion) matter. The Written Discourse enabling skill scores for them. Nigerian academic English is naturally good at this. Do not dumb your essay down.
You hear a 5 to 15 word sentence read once. You then have 15 seconds to repeat it back exactly. The algorithm scores:
The hack that works. Anchor on the last 3 to 4 words. Human short term memory holds the tail of a sentence better than the head. If you only catch part of the sentence, say what you caught with confidence. Partial credit beats silence.
Do not try to repeat verbatim if you did not fully hear it. Reconstruct the gist and say it fluently. The Speaking score rewards fluency over fidelity in marginal cases.
You are given 4 to 5 paragraph fragments in random order. Drag them into logical sequence within 2.5 minutes. The algorithm gives partial credit per correct adjacent pair.
The pronoun and reference rule wins this task. Find the paragraph with no pronoun references to anything else. That is the opening (the "anchor" paragraph). Then look for paragraphs that begin with referring words like "this," "these," "however," "therefore," "such," "the latter." Those have to come after something they refer to.
Time discipline. Spend a maximum of 90 seconds on the logic. Lock your answer at 90 seconds and move on. The Re order task is the single biggest time sink in Reading.
Because every word you correctly transcribe is worth a measurable, additive number of marks. There are typically 3 to 4 WfD items per test, each containing 8 to 12 words. That is 35 to 40 individual scoring opportunities packed into the last 5 minutes of the test.
Mathematically, WfD performance can move your Listening band by 10 to 15 PTE points on its own. We have watched Mafit students fail to hit 79 Listening by 1 point because they fumbled two WfD items.
Technique. Shorthand the keywords first, then fill in the function words afterwards. Do not try to type the full sentence in order. Type the nouns and verbs from memory, then go back and slot in articles, prepositions and auxiliaries. Pearson's question bank rotates, and roughly 80% of the WfD items on your test will have appeared on practice platforms in the previous 30 days.
Depends entirely on where you are starting from. Rough Mafit benchmarks based on diagnostic scores:
The most common Nigerian mistake is to over estimate the starting position. Confident English speakers from Lagos and Abuja often score in the high 50s on their first diagnostic. Not because their English is bad, but because PTE rewards a very specific set of techniques that are not part of standard Nigerian academic English.
Yes, but expect it to take at least twice as long and cost you 1 or 2 extra test sittings in the process.
Self study works if (a) your diagnostic is already 70+, (b) you have 8 to 12 weeks of disciplined daily practice in you, and (c) you can find an AI scored mock test platform that mimics the real Pearson scoring. The free Pearson "PTE Online Tutorial" is helpful for format familiarity but does not actually score you.
For a typical Nigerian candidate aiming for a high score, the maths usually works out in favour of coaching. Every extra test sitting adds another Pearson fee, while a structured cohort aims to get you there in one attempt.
Three sources we would actually recommend:
Skip. Random YouTube playlists, "PTE 90 in 7 days" Telegram groups, and anyone selling a "leaked Pearson question bank." Those last ones are scams or copyright violations that can void your test if Pearson detects them in your practice history.
In our experience, two things only the in person classroom can do well:
That said, the Mafit online cohort delivers the same curriculum, same coaches, and same mock schedule, with booth headsets shipped to your address. The acoustic stress practice is replicated through paired Zoom sessions. If you live far from our centres, online is the right choice.
Minimum five full length AI scored mocks under timed conditions. Anything less and you are walking into the real test without enough data to know which task types are reliably weak versus which are inconsistent.
Sequence we recommend:
The five mock pattern is built into every Mafit Standard Cohort. Sprint cohorts get three. One on One students get unlimited.
Mafit Study Centre has been coaching Nigerian candidates for international English proficiency exams since 2011, across IELTS and TOEFL. The PTE programme launched in 2026 as our newest specialism.
We coach both PTE pathways, PTE Academic and PTE Core, in separate cohorts because the task types, scoring scales and target benchmarks differ.
We operate out of three physical campuses: Lagos (Ikeja), Abuja (Central Business District) and Port Harcourt (Rumuomasi). Live online cohorts serve every other Nigerian state.
Three tiers, no hidden fees. Same pricing for both PTE Academic and PTE Core streams:
Coupon code MAFIT currently knocks ₦35,000 off the Standard Cohort. All fees are payable in Nigerian naira to a Mafit account. No foreign currency conversion.
For Standard Cohort and One on One students. If you attend at least 80% of the live sessions, sit all scheduled mocks, and still miss your declared target score on the real Pearson test, we re coach you through the next cohort cycle at no additional fee. You pay only the Pearson test fee for the re sit.
This guarantee does not apply to the Sprint cohort. The timeline is too short to underwrite. It also does not refund the Pearson test fee. That is paid directly to Pearson and we have no margin to refund.
Cohorts kick off on the first Monday of every month for Standard and One on One tiers. Sprint cohorts run mid month. Each cohort is capped at 12 students, so seats can fill quickly.
Register early to secure your seat. Your counsellor confirms the next start date when you sign up.
Customer Service line. +234 201 330 9487. Monday to Saturday, 8am to 7pm WAT.
Full contact form, campus addresses and booking enquiries. gregmattoeflnigeria.com/contact
Walk ins welcome at any of our three campuses during business hours. We strongly recommend booking a free 30 minute diagnostic call before enrolling. It lets us recommend the right cohort tier for your specific starting position and timeline.
You've scrolled this far, which means you are serious about getting the score you need. PTE Academic gives you the score in 48 hours. Mafit gives you the coaching to hit it on the first sit. Start the next cohort.
MAFIT at checkout, ₦35,000 off the Standard Cohort. Valid while the current promo runs.