Healthcare professionals who are looking to work in the healthcare sector in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, Dubai, and Singapore are required to appear for their OET (Occupational English Test) in order to establish their proficiency in the English Language in a healthcare environment. For candidates to be able to effectively score well in their OET exam they would be required to know the OET Syllabus/ OET Exam Pattern. Conducted by Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment Trust (CBLA), the latest OET Pattern is as follows.

Entire OET Exam is divided into four sections, the Listening Section, which is on 50 minutes in duration and is made up of 3 parts; the Reading Section, which is for 60 minutes and divided into 3 parts; the Writing Section, which is profession-specific and requires candidates to write a letter of recommendation and finally the last section; the Speaking Section that requires the candidate to enact a setting from the healthcare environment.

OET Paper Pattern

OET Exam Pattern/ Sections

Test Duration

OET Description

Listening

45 minutes

The Listening subsection is divided into 3 parts that test the candidates listening capabilities in various formats.

Reading

60 minutes

The Reading subsection is divided into 3 parts that test the candidates reading capabilities in various formats.

Writing

45 minutes

The Writing subsection is profession-specific and requires candidates to write a letter of reference.

Speaking

20 minutes

The Writing subsection is profession-specific and requires candidates to enact a roleplay from the healthcare environment.


OET Listening Section

With a total duration of 45 minutes, the Listening subtest consists of a total of 42 questions divided into 3 parts. Candidates would each hear the recorded speech once and would be expected to answer the questions while at it. The total duration of the exam would include dealing with topics of generic healthcare interests across all healthcare professions.

  • Part A (Consultation Extracts)

Part B (Short Workplace Extracts)

Part C (Presentation Extracts)

For the first task, healthcare professionals would be required to identify specific information during a consultation. Candidates would be required to complete the health professional notes from listening to the two recorded health professional-patient consultations.

For the second task, candidates would be required to listen to multiple recorded extracts that could range from team briefings, handovers, to health professional-patient dialogues and answer one multiple-choice question for each extract. In the second part, the candidate is tested on identifying details of short extracts from the healthcare workplace.

The third and final task of the Listening section would require candidates to listen to multiple recorded presentations or interviews on a range of accessible healthcare topics and answer multiple-choice questions for each extract.


OET Reading Section

With a total duration of 60 minutes, the Reading section is made up of 42 questions, divided into 3 parts. Candidates would be required to answer the question of generic healthcare-related topics.

Part A (Expeditious Reading)

Part B (Careful Reading)

Part C (Careful Reading)

For the first task, candidates would be required to read four short essays and locate specific information from the texts. The essays provided to the candidates would be related to general healthcare topics. The questions could vary from match the following, sentence completion to short answer questions.

For the second task, candidates would be given multiple short texts related to generic healthcare topics and candidates would be required to identify the main points and answer multiple-choice questions. The essays can include topics ranging from policy guidelines, hospital guides, manuals, emails, memos to internal communication.

For the third and last task, pertaining to the Reading section, candidates would be required to identify the detailed meaning of the topic provided to them and answer multiple questions for the same.


Writing Section

With a total duration of 45 minutes, the Writing section requires the candidate to write a letter, usually a letter of reference in his/her field of specialty. The candidate would be provided with background information to his task which he may or may not incorporate into his reference letter. This particular task is profession-specific, hence while a nurse would have to write a letter specific to nursing a dentist would be required to write a reference letter specific to dentistry.

Speaking Section

With a total duration of 20 minutes, candidates are required to individually enact their professional role in real-life scenarios in a professional healthcare environment. A profession-specific exercise, candidates are required to roleplay their profession while the panelist plays a patient for the first part, and the roles are reversed in the latter. Candidates are given 3 minutes to prepare for each side before the start of each act. The roleplays are basically based on mock workplace situations that reflect the mood of the healthcare environment. The candidates would be given enough background information to prepare for their roleplay sessions.

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