OET

Opening doors worldwide

OET is a trusted name recognized by healthcare regulators, employers, and educational institutions around the world. Our test is accepted by over 450 organizations in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, helping you pursue your dream career.

Select between a computer-based test (results available in 10 days) or a paper-based test (results in 17 days)*.
*For 95% of candidates, OET on computer provides results within 10 days.

The best choice for healthcare professionals

When healthcare professionals take our test, they showcase their language abilities at an industry-standard level, instilling confidence in their readiness for success. Therefore, preparing for the OET Test is essentially preparing for your future job.

OET TEST:

Listening

• • The Listening sub-test is approximately 40 minutes long.  
  • There are three parts and a total of 42 question items.  
  • The topics are of generic healthcare interest and accessible to all candidates across all professions. 

• Part A – Consultation extracts (about 5 minutes each):  Listen to two recorded health professional-patient consultations and complete the health professional’s notes using the information you hear. 
• Part B – short workplace extracts (about 1 minute each): Listen to six recorded extracts (e.g. team briefings, handovers, or health professional-patient dialogues) and answer one multiple-choice question for each extract.
• Part C – Presentation or interview extracts (about 5 minutes each): Listen to two different extracts and answer six multiple-choice questions for each extract.
• This sub-test is designed to evaluate a range of skills, such as identifying specific information, detail, gist, opinion or the speaker’s purpose, which are assessed through note-completion tasks and multiple-choice questions.  
• Answers for OET Listening Part A are double marked by qualified assessors, against an established marking guide. Answers for Part B and Part C are computer scanned and automatically scored.  

 Reading

• The Reading sub-test consists of three parts, with 42 questions in total.  
• This sub-test takes 60 minutes to complete. 
• The topics are of generic healthcare interest and accessible to candidates across all professions. 
• Part A – expeditious reading task (15 minutes): Read four short texts related to a single healthcare topic, and answer 20 matching, sentence completion and short answer questions.  
• Part B – short workplace extracts: Read six extracts (e.g., policy documents, hospital guidelines, manuals or internal communications, such as emails or memos) and answer one multiple-choice question for each extract 

Part C –  longer articles: read two articles typical of the types of texts healthcare professionals read for professional development and answer eight multiple-choice questions for each text.

Timing for Parts B and C is combined and is 45 minutes

• This sub-test is designed to evaluate a range of skills, such as skimming and scanning, identifying the detail, gist, main point explicit or implied meaning as well as the attitude or opinion of texts which are assessed through matching, sentence completion, short answer or multiple-choice questions. 
• Answers for OET Reading Part A are double-marked by qualified assessors, against an established marking guide. Answers for Part B and Part C are computer scanned and automatically scored.  
  
  Writing

• The writing sub-test takes 45 minutes and is profession-specific 
• There is one task set for each profession based on a typical workplace situation and the demands of the profession – a nurse does the task for nursing, a dentist does the task for dentistry, and so on 
• The task is to write a letter, usually a referral letter. Some alternative letter types, and depending on profession, are a letter of transfer, a discharge letter, a letter to advise or inform a patient, carer or group, or a letter responding to a complaint.
• Five minutes reading time to read case notes and/or other related documentation, and 40 minutes writing time to complete the letter. 
• The Writing sub-test is designed to evaluate six criteria, which you can learn about here.  
• Answers for the Writing sub-test are double-marked by qualified assessors using the assessment criteria.
  
  Speaking

• The Speaking sub-test takes around 20 minutes and is profession-specific
• There are two role-play tasks for each profession based on typical workplace situations. In each role play, the candidate takes the role of the professional (for example, as a nurse or as a pharmacist), while the interlocutor takes the role of a patient, a client, or a patient’s relative or carer. For Veterinary Science, the interlocutor takes the role of the animal’s owner or carer
• The task is two role plays. Before beginning the assessment, there is a short warm up conversation with the interlocutor. For each role play, there are three minutes to read the role-play card and five minutes to role-play the task points
• The candidate and interlocutor role cards contain the same background information about the role-play scenario and prompts to maintain the conversation for five minutes
• The Speaking sub-test is and designed to evaluate 4 linguistic criteria and 5 clinical communication criteria, which you can learn about here.  
• Role plays are recorded by the interlocutor and these recordings are double-marked by qualified assessors using the assessment criteria. The interlocutor plays no role in assessment.