IELTS test format

The four parts in brief

Listening, Reading and Writing are taken in one sitting, one after the other with no break. Speaking may be on the same day or up to a week before or after: the day of your Speaking test is shown beside each date on the Dates and fees page.

Listening

You listen to four recordings and answer 40 questions, ten for each recording. The first two are set in everyday situations: a conversation between two people, then one person speaking. The other two are set in education: a conversation between two main speakers, then a lecture. Each recording is played once.

Listening is the same in IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training.

Reading

• IELTS Academic: three long texts taken from books, journals, magazines, newspapers and online sources, 2,150 to 2,750 words in total.
• IELTS General Training: three parts of increasing difficulty. The first has two or three short texts, or several shorter ones, from everyday life; the second has two texts related to work; the third has one long text.

In both tests you answer 40 questions in 60 minutes.

Writing

• Task 1, at least 150 words. In Academic you describe a graph, table or diagram in your own words. In General Training you write a letter in response to a given situation.
• Task 2, at least 250 words. In both tests you write an essay in which you give your view on a set topic and support it.

Task 2 is worth twice as much as Task 1 in your Writing score. IELTS recommends about 20 minutes for Task 1 and about 40 minutes for Task 2.

Speaking

Speaking is a one-to-one conversation with an examiner. It takes 11 to 14 minutes, is recorded and has three parts:

1. Introduction and interview, 4 to 5 minutes. The examiner asks questions about you: your home, family, work, studies and interests.
2. Individual long turn, 3 to 4 minutes. You are given a card with a topic and one minute to prepare, and then you speak for up to two minutes.
3. Discussion, 4 to 5 minutes. A conversation about the topic from Part 2, at a more general level.

Speaking is the same in IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training. The British Council states that the Speaking test is held face to face or by video call; either way, you talk to a real examiner.

IELTS on computer

The IELTS partners have announced that from mid-2026 IELTS is no longer offered as a paper-based test. At our centres every test is taken on computer: in Listening and Reading you select or type your answers on screen, and you type your Writing tasks. The IELTS partners state that this changes neither the skills the test assesses nor the way results are interpreted.

You can try out how the test looks on screen, free of charge, in the official familiarisation test offered by the British Council.

How it is marked

Each part is given a score on the nine-band IELTS scale, in whole and half bands. The overall band score is the average of the four parts. How it is calculated and what each score means: Band scores.