Short for Occupational English Test, OET is the standardised English language test for healthcare professionals seeking employment in an English-speaking environment, such as the UK, USA, and Australia. More than the ability of a candidate to use and understand the language and follow its rules of usage, the OET puts an emphasis on the test-taker’s communication skills in the medical and health professional setting.
If you are planning to take the OET, it would be good to familiarise yourself with the format of the exam, as it allows you to properly strategise during preparation and the test proper, and, ultimately, contributes to your overall OET readiness.
OET Listening
The Listening portion is one of two sub-tests of the OET that has the same content for all healthcare professions. In other words, whether you are in the field of dentistry, nursing, or any of the 12 healthcare professions covered by the OET, you will be taking the same Listening test as the other candidates.
Divided into three parts, OET Listening runs for approximately 40 minutes.
- The first part is a recorded consultation between a health professional and a patient, and your task is to complete the medical professional’s notes based on the information acquired from the recording.
- For the second part, you will be listening to six short recorded workplace extracts, which can be recordings from handovers, team briefings, among others. Your listening comprehension for this part will be measured by way of multiple choice questions for each recording.
- The third part consists of two recorded extracts from professional presentations and interviews. For each recording, six multiple choice questions will be answered by the candidate.
OET Reading
Similar to the Listening portion, OET Reading has the same content, regardless which healthcare profession the candidate is practising under. It takes a total of 60 minutes to accomplish and has a total of 42 items to answer.
OET Reading is divided into three parts as well, with the first part taking 15 minutes of the exam time, and the last two parts the other 45 minutes.
- The first part is a short reading task, consisting of four texts on a single healthcare topic. Within the 15 minutes, you will be answering 20 items of a combination of sentence completion, short responses, and matching-type questions.
- The second part is an assessment of how well the candidate is able to deduce the main idea in a short text. This part of OET Reading involves six short texts from different documents such as contracts, hospital guidelines, memos, and internal communications, to name a few. Each text is followed by one multiple-choice item.
- The third part measures the ability of the test-taker to identify in detail the meaning, purpose, and opinion in a reading material. This last part consists of two texts of approximately 800 words each, followed by eight multiple-choice questions.
OET Writing
Unlike the first two portions discussed, OET Writing is profession-specific. This means that in OET Writing (and Speaking), the candidate will be able to showcase his or her knowledge in his or her particular medical field.
OET Writing consists of only one major task, which is to write a letter based on a given context and the provided materials such as case notes and other relevant documents. Again, depending on which healthcare profession you are practising under, you may be required to draft a referral letter, letter to a patient, an administrator, or the employer-company, or a letter-response to a complaint.
From reading the stimulus material to the writing of the actual letter, test-takers will be given a total of 45 minutes for this portion of the OET.
OET Speaking
The shortest among the four OET sub-tests, OET Speaking runs for approximately 20 minutes and, again, will be specific to your healthcare field. Here, you will be interacting with an interlocutor through a set of role-plays, where you will take the professional role, while the interlocutor will act as the patient or, in some cases, the patient’s family member or guardian. If you are practising under the veterinary science profession, your assigned interlocutor will take on the role as the animal’s owner or carer.
Note that while the OET Speaking is relatively short, you will be doing more than one role-play for the entirety of the OET Speaking portion. For each role-play, you will be handed a card that contains the situation and the task required of you. The scenarios in these cards will be based on typical situations that occur in the workplace, and each will take about five minutes to finish.
The entire OET Speaking will be recorded, and it is the audio recording that will be listened to and be graded independently by two OET assessors.
Truly, the OET is a professional and comprehensive language assessment, but despite its seemingly gruelling nature, it certainly is surpassable!
Let us help you conquer the OET. Contact us to avail of our expert-facilitated OET preparation courses. We look forward to helping you as you prepare to achieve your goal!
