IELTS (International English Language Testing System)

Structure & Format

• IELTS has four sections: Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking. Approximate duration:

   

  • Listening: ~30 minutes (+ 10 mins for transfer in paper-based version) 
    
  • Reading: 60 minutes 

     

  • Writing: 60 minutes (Task 1 + Task 2) 

     

  • Speaking: 11–14 minutes, face-to-face with an examiner. 

     

• In the academic version, the reading texts come from academic sources; for general training, they’re more everyday / workplace-based. 
  

Skills Assessed

• Listening: Ability to understand conversations and monologues in different accents.

   

• Reading: Comprehension, identifying main ideas, understanding inferences, recognizing writer’s purpose / attitude.

   

• Writing: Task 1 (graph / chart description or letter, depending on test version); Task 2 (essay responding to a prompt). 
  
• Speaking: Fluency, coherence, vocabulary, grammatical range, and pronunciation — assessed through structured interview, a long turn, and a discussion.

   

Scoring

• Each section is scored on a band from 1 to 9, in whole or half bands (e.g. 6.5).

   

• The overall band score is an average of the four sections. 

   

• There are different types of questions (e.g., multiple-choice, matching, sentence completion) depending on the section.

   

Why It Matters

• IELTS is one of the most recognized English-proficiency tests globally; many universities, especially in the UK, Australia, Canada, and Europe, accept it.

   

• It tests real-world academic English, making it a reliable indicator of whether a student can cope with university-level English demands.

   

Because of its structure, students can demonstrate balanced ability across listening, reading, writing, and speaking.