IELTS exam pattern: what each section asks, and for how long

The four sections at a glance

There is no transfer time on the computer-delivered test: you type your answers as you listen. That is a real difference from the old paper test, where ten extra minutes were given at the end of Listening to copy answers onto an answer sheet.

Listening

Four parts, increasing in difficulty, each played once and once only. The first two are set in everyday social contexts — an enquiry, a briefing — and the last two in education and training contexts, ending with a lecture-style monologue.

• Multiple choice — one answer or several.
• Matching — items to a list of options.
• Plan, map or diagram labelling.
• Form, note, table, flow-chart or summary completion.
• Sentence completion and short-answer questions.

The single most common avoidable loss here is the word limit: an instruction saying "NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS" is marked strictly, and a correct idea written in three words scores zero.

Reading

Academic gives you three long passages of the kind found in journals, books and newspapers, written for a non-specialist but educated reader. General Training gives you shorter everyday texts — notices, advertisements, handbooks — plus one longer passage on a general subject.

• True / False / Not Given, and Yes / No / Not Given for opinions.
• Matching headings to paragraphs.
• Matching information, features or sentence endings.
• Sentence, summary, note, table or flow-chart completion.
• Diagram label completion, multiple choice and short-answer questions.

Sixty minutes covers reading, answering and transferring — there is no extra time. At forty questions that is ninety seconds each, which is why pacing rather than vocabulary is what limits most scores.

Writing

Two tasks in sixty minutes. Task 2 is worth twice Task 1, so the sensible split is twenty minutes and forty.

Both are marked on four equally weighted criteria: Task Achievement or Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Writing under the word count is penalised directly, and an Academic Task 1 without an overview cannot reach the higher bands however accurate the detail is.

Speaking

A face-to-face interview with a certified examiner, recorded, in three parts.

1. Introduction and interview (4–5 minutes). Familiar topics — your home, work, studies, interests.
2. Long turn (3–4 minutes). A cue card, one minute to prepare, then one to two minutes of uninterrupted speech, followed by a question or two.
3. Discussion (4–5 minutes). Abstract questions connected to the Part 2 topic, where the examiner is looking for opinion, comparison and justification.

Marked on Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation. Accent is not assessed; intelligibility is.