Occupational English Test (OET)

Occupational English Test (OET) is an English language test for healthcare sector.OET assesses the communication skill of healthcare professionals, as you know how important communication is in your job, it also assesses your English in reading, speaking and writing subtests. Occupational English Test (OET) is designed for you, simulating real workplace tasks and testing relevant healthcare tactics. For example, for the writing section of this test, you must write a referral letter or a discharge letter ­ a task that you must learn how to do in your job anyway.

Research shows that this test is advocated by past test takers as the most suitable test for registration, employment and visa purposes because the test focuses on medical English.

SUBTESTS

LISTENING

The Listening consists of 2 parts: Part A is a consultation. In this part you will listen to a professional-patient conversation and you will be asked to take notes on that.In Part B you will listen to a talk or a lecture and will then be asked to answer questions on the talk/lecture. This are open-ended questions and fixed choice tasks.

WRITING

The best part of about OET Writing compared to Writing Sections in other English test, is that this writing task is profession-specific. There is one task for each profession: A doctor does the task for medicine, a nurse does a nursing related task, a dentist does a task for dentistry and so on.

The task itself is writing a letter. It may be a referral letter, letter to advice a patient or letter of discharge, etc.

READING

The topics for reading are generic healthcare topics, which is why all professions can take the same reading test.

 In Part A you will read about 3 to 4 short texts on one topic and you will have to complete a summary paragraph by filling in the gaps in that paragraph.

In Part B you will have to read two passages and then have to answer multiple-choice questions

SPEAKING

The OET Speaking Part is taken individually and varies by profession. It is in the form of a role play. The Speaking part is different to many other tests as well as you will be doing the part of your professional role. So if you are a nurse, you will also be the nurse in the role play and the instructor will play the patient/client.