Maya stared at the blinking cursor on her laptop screen. Her PTE Academic test was in 48 hours, and her wallet was empty. No budget for the $70 official guide, let alone the book, audio CD, or CD-ROM.

The third link was a gray forum post from 2019, buried under pages of spam. One comment read: "Mega link still works (as of last week)."

On test day, the first speaking prompt appeared: “Describe the image of a bar chart showing internet usage from 2010 to 2020.”

She typed desperately into a search engine: "The Official Guide to PTE Academic - book audio CD and CD-ROM - free download"

For 12 hours, she drilled. Repeated sentences into her headset. Typed essays against the timer. Wrote down collocations from the listening section.