IELTS
What the test is, how it is scored and what to do about it. Free, with no signup.
IELTS is the International English Language Testing System. It measures English across four skills - listening, reading, writing and speaking - and reports each one on a nine-band scale, along with an overall band. It is accepted by universities, employers and immigration authorities in more than 140 countries.
There is no pass mark. IELTS reports what your English is like; the institution you are applying to decides what it will accept. A band 6.5 that is enough for one university will be short for another, and visa requirements are set separately again.
Two hours forty-five minutes in total, taken in one sitting apart from speaking.
Four recordings, forty questions, heard once only. Identical for Academic and General Training.
Ten questions per recording.
Forty questions across three sections. The texts differ between Academic and General Training.
No extra transfer time.
Two tasks. Task 1 is 150 words, Task 2 is 250 words and counts double.
Spend 20 minutes and 40 minutes.
A face-to-face interview with an examiner in three parts. Identical for both versions.
Often on a different day.
Listening and speaking are the same in both. Only reading and writing differ.
Study for university, or work and migration.
Since 27 June 2026 every IELTS test is taken on a computer. Speaking is still face to face.
Results in three to five days.
Each of the four skills gets a band from 0 to 9, in whole and half bands. The overall band is the average of the four, rounded to the nearest half band: an average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band, and one ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band.
Listening and reading are marked against an answer key, so they are objective. Writing and speaking are judged by a trained examiner against four published criteria each, which is why they behave differently and why they are the two most people underestimate.
Information here. Practice and assessment elsewhere.
This section explains the test. For actual IELTS practice - reading tests, listening tests, model answers and speaking topics - everything is on our IELTS site, and it is also free.
No. IELTS reports a band from 0 to 9 for each skill and an overall band. Whether that is enough depends entirely on the university, employer or immigration authority you are applying to.
Most institutions accept scores for two years from the test date. Some set a shorter window, and a few will consider older scores with evidence that your English has been maintained.
As often as you like, with no waiting period. Computer-delivered candidates can also use One Skill Retake to sit a single section again within a limited window rather than repeating the whole test.
Not harder, but different. IELTS speaking is a conversation with a human examiner rather than a recording, and its writing is hand-marked against criteria. Which suits you depends more on how you perform than on the difficulty.
IELTS is not one thing when it comes to official use. UK visas need it booked through the UKVI route, Canadian immigration wants General Training rather than Academic, and healthcare regulators want Academic at a high band. Which English test for a UK visa sets out the levels by route, and nursing registration by country covers the regulator side.
Where free stops
Everything on this site is open, and for reading, listening, grammar and vocabulary that is enough: they have right answers, so you can check them yourself.
Writing and speaking are judged against criteria rather than checked against a key, which is why no free page can score them. IELTStestONLINE assesses both against the four IELTS criteria, using a system built by a former examiner and examiner trainer.
See how that works