What Is IELTS? A Plain Guide to the Test

If you are applying to study, work or settle somewhere that asks for proof of English, there is a good chance IELTS is the name on the form. It is one of the most widely used English tests in the world, and it is often misunderstood, mostly because people prepare for "an English exam" in general and not for what this test actually measures. This guide explains the basics in plain terms. For exact dates, locations and rules, always check the organization that runs the test.

Who runs IELTS

IELTS stands for the International English Language Testing System. It is jointly owned by three organizations: the British Council, IDP IELTS, and Cambridge University Press and Assessment. Its home site describes it as the world's most trusted English test and lists three kinds of test: IELTS Academic, IELTS General Training and a version for UK visas and immigration. Wordabulary is not connected with IELTS or with any exam body, and exam names belong to their owners.

Universities, employers and immigration authorities in many countries use IELTS results as evidence that someone can function in English at a given level. There is no pass or fail. You receive a score on a band scale from 1 to 9, and each organization sets its own minimum for the programs or visas it offers. The most important step before you begin preparing is to find out which score your institution asks for, and in which version of the test.

The four sections

Every version of IELTS tests the same four skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking. According to the IELTS Academic page, the timings are as follows.

Listening takes about 30 minutes. Reading takes 60 minutes, including transfer time. Writing takes 60 minutes. Speaking takes 11 to 14 minutes. The total test time is 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the page says you can take the test at a test center or remotely online, with the format the same wherever it is taken.

On most test days, the listening, reading and writing sections are taken one after another in a single sitting. The speaking section is a face-to-face conversation with an examiner, and depending on the test center it may be scheduled on the same day or up to a week before or after. Check your booking confirmation for your own schedule.

Academic or General Training

The two main versions share the same listening and speaking sections. They differ in reading and writing.

Academic is for people applying to university or professional registration. Its reading section uses longer passages of the kind found in academic texts, and its first writing task asks you to describe a graph, chart or diagram.

General Training is for work experience, training programs and migration. Its reading uses shorter, everyday texts, and its first writing task is a letter.

Which version you need depends entirely on why you are taking the test, so ask the organization requesting your score before you register. Choosing the wrong version can mean having to take the test again.

How the scoring works

Each section produces a band score from 1 to 9, usually in half-band steps, and the four are averaged into an overall band. Different institutions look at the overall score, at the individual sections, or at both, so read the requirement closely. A requirement such as "6.5 overall with no section below 6" is common.

Speaking and writing are marked by trained examiners against published criteria. For speaking, IELTS uses four equally weighted criteria: fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation. For writing, it also uses four: task achievement for the first task and task response for the second, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy. Lexical resource is the term for vocabulary, and it covers range, precision and natural use of words, with collocation as part of it. The public band descriptors are available as PDFs on the IELTS site, and reading them gives you a much clearer picture than a general description does.

The role of vocabulary

Vocabulary appears in every section, though in different ways. In reading, unfamiliar words slow you down and can hide the answer to a question. In listening, speech moves at natural speed, so you cannot stop to work out a word. In writing and speaking, lexical resource is one of the four criteria, worth a quarter of the mark for each skill.

Two points are worth keeping in mind. First, what the criteria reward is use, not just knowledge. The descriptors mention paraphrase, which means saying something another way, and natural collocation, which means using words with their usual partners. Memorizing a long list of rare words does little for either. Second, accuracy matters alongside range. A sentence built around a word you are unsure of can lose more marks than it gains. IELTS vocabulary: how to prepare looks at this in more detail.

A realistic study plan

A good plan starts by finding out where you are. Take a practice test under timed conditions and note which section and which criterion cost you the most. Then spend your time where the gap is largest. For many people, that is not vocabulary at all, and it may be timing in reading, or organizing ideas in writing, or speaking without long pauses.

When vocabulary is the gap, build it in short regular sessions and test yourself on the words. The topics that come up often in IELTS tasks, such as education, work, health, environment, technology and society, are a good place to focus, because the same topic vocabulary tends to appear in more than one section. Work with words at your level first. If your goal is a band score in the middle of the range, you will gain more from using common words accurately than from collecting rare ones. How CEFR levels are evaluated explains how speaking and writing criteria like these work in general.

Practical tips for test day

Arrive early with the identification document your booking asks for. In the listening section, read the questions before the audio starts, because you will not hear each part twice. In reading, do not spend too long on one question, since the time is fixed. In writing, plan for a few minutes before you start, and leave time to check for simple errors. In speaking, answer the question you are asked, and develop your answers instead of giving one-word replies. If you do not understand a question, it is fine to ask the examiner to repeat it.

How Wordabulary fits in

Wordabulary can help with the vocabulary part of your preparation. Words are tagged by level from A1 to C2, practice shows one word at a time with a definition and an example sentence, and quizzes include a typing format that asks you to produce words. It is not an IELTS course, it does not predict your band score, and it should be used alongside practice tests and speaking and writing practice. If you want a rough idea of your starting level, the placement assessment gives an estimate.