IELTS

IELTS assesses English across four skills — Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking — and is accepted by universities, employers and immigration authorities in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, and by a large and growing number of institutions in the United States and Europe.

There are two versions and choosing the wrong one is a common, expensive mistake. IELTS Academic is the version required for university admission; its Reading and Writing tasks are built around academic texts, data and argument. IELTS General Training is used for migration and for some work and vocational purposes, and uses everyday and workplace material instead.

The test can be taken on paper or on computer, and separate IELTS for UKVI arrangements exist for certain UK visa purposes. In every format the Speaking section is a live interview with a trained examiner, which is the main thing that distinguishes IELTS from fully automated tests.

All four sections are taken, and Listening, Reading and Writing are completed in one sitting with no break between them.

• Listening — four recorded sections progressing from everyday conversation to academic monologue, with a range of question types. It is the same for both versions of the test.
• Reading — three long passages in the Academic version, drawn from books, journals and newspapers. The General Training version uses workplace notices and everyday texts instead.
• Writing — two tasks. Academic Task 1 asks you to describe a graph, table, chart or process; General Training Task 1 is a letter. Task 2 is an essay in both versions and carries more weight than Task 1.
• Speaking — a three-part interview with an examiner: introduction and familiar questions, a short talk from a prompt card after brief preparation time, and a longer discussion of the related abstract themes.

IELTS reports results on a nine-band scale. Each of the four sections receives its own band score, and the four are averaged to give an overall band score. Both section and overall scores are reported in whole and half bands.

• Band 9 expert user, Band 8 very good user, Band 7 good user, Band 6 competent user, Band 5 modest user, descending to Band 1. A Band 0 is recorded where the test was not attempted.
• Universities normally set both an overall band and a minimum band in each individual section. The individual-section minimum is what most applicants actually miss.
• Results are released a few days after a computer-delivered test, and take longer after a paper-based one.

Requirements differ by institution, by course and by visa route, so work towards the specific score your chosen course and destination ask for rather than a general target.

• Decide whether you need Academic or General Training before you book anything at all.
• Take one full timed practice test early, to find out where you actually stand instead of guessing.
• Spend more preparation time on Writing Task 2 than Task 1 — it carries greater weight and is where most band scores are lost.
• Read the published assessment criteria. Writing and Speaking are marked on fluency, coherence, vocabulary range, and grammatical range and accuracy — not on how impressive a word sounds.
• Practise Speaking out loud with another person, record it, and listen back. Rehearsing answers silently does not prepare you for a live interview.
• Build listening stamina with unscripted material in a range of accents, played at natural speed and only once.
• Work on timing under exam conditions. Running out of time in Reading is far more common than not knowing the answers.