General IELTS Test
Exam Overview
Listening
4 parts approximately 30 minutes + 10 to transfer your answers to the answer sheet
Part 1 a social or transactional conversation between 2 speakers 10 questions
Part 2 monologue on social needs, 1 speaker 10 questions
Part 3 conversion related to training or educational context 2 to 4 speakers 10 questions
Part 4 monologue, a talk or lecture on a general interest topic 1 speaker 10 questions
Question types listening
Multiple choice
Matching
Labeling a map, plan or diagram
Sentence completion
Short-answer question
Form, note, table, flow-chart or summary completion
1 point per correct answer
Tip! Grammar and spelling are important you will lose you a point if the grammar or spelling of the answer is wrong
Scoring
Scoring exam | IELTS band score |
40-39 | 9 |
38-37 | 8.5 |
36-35 | 8 |
34-32 | 7.5 |
31-30 | 7 |
29-26 | 6.5 |
25-23 | 6 |
22-18 | 5.5 |
17-16 | 5 |
15-13 | 4.5 |
12-10 | 4 |
9-8 | 3.5 |
7-6 | 3 |
4-5 | 2.5 |
General reading
- 60 minutes
- 3 parts roughly 20 minutes per part
Part 1: Two, three or several short texts on Social survival
Relevant to basic linguistic survival in English mostly about retrieving and providing general factual information. For example, notices, advertisements and timetables.
Part 2: Two texts on Workplace survival
A workplace context. For example, job descriptions, contracts and staff development and training materials.
Part 3: One long text on General reading
More extended text with more complex structure. Descriptive and instructive rather than argumentative, academic texts, relevant to the wide range people. For example, newspapers, magazines and fictional and non-fictional book extracts.
Question types
- Multiple choice
- Identifying information
- Identifying writers claim or opinion
- Short-answer questions
- Sentence completion
- Classification
- Matching headings, matching information, matching sentence endings
- Completing notes, sentences, tables, diagram, flowchart or a summary
- Matching lists, phrases
Marks
1 point per correct answer
Tip! grammar and spelling are important you will lose a point if the grammar or spelling of the answer is wrong.
Marks
Scoring exam | IELTS band score |
40 | 9 |
39 | 8.5 |
38-37 | 8 |
36 | 7.5 |
35-34 | 7 |
33-32 | 6.5 |
31-30 | 6 |
29-27 | 5.5 |
26-23 | 5 |
22-19 | 4.5 |
18-15 | 4 |
14-12 | 3.5 |
11-9 | 3 |
8-6 | 2.5 |
General writing
- 60 minutes
- 2 parts
Task 1
20 minutes
150 word response to a situation. For example, a letter requesting information, explaining a situation, complaining…
Task 2
40 minutes
250 words academic essay responding to a problem or giving your opinion
Marks
1 to 9 on 4 assessment criteria:
- Task achievement
- Cohesion and coherence
- Lexical resources
- Grammatical Accuracy and Range
Speaking
- 11 to 14 minutes
- Speaking is most of the time on a different date before the written component of the test
- 3 parts
Part 1
Introduction and familiar discussion 4-5 minutes
Part 2
Long turn 3-4 minutes prep 1 minute and talk for 2 minutes on a topic written down on a cue card. Answer 1 or 2 follow up questions
Part 3
Topic discussion: discuss in greater depth more general and abstract questions related to the topic of part 2 (long turn) 4-5 minutes
Marks
1 to 9 on 4 assessment criteria:
- Fluency
- Lexical range
- Accuracy
- Pronunciation
Band descriptors overview Speaking



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2 thoughts on “General IELTS test”
Hi,
How to subscribe for General speaking test ?
Hello Tanuja,
Thanks for your comment. What do you mean subscribe for the general speaking test? As you want to do the exam in your local examination centre or you want to practice the speaking test here with us?