IELTS Exam


IELTS is the globally accepted entrance exam, its providing window for candidate who wish to go abroad for their higher education. Every year minimum 1.7 million people take IELTS exams, and this number is increasing rapidly. Universally more than 6.500 universities, government bodies and professional organisations accept IELTS scores. IELTS is jointly owned by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations

The IELTS test consists of four parts in the following order:

Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking.

  • Listening : it will take 30 minutes - 20 minutes to listen to a recording and to answer questions on what you hear, and 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the Answer Sheet.
  • Reading : it takes 1 hour and your task is to read passages of text and answer questions according to what you have read.
  • Writing : will takes also 1 hour and is divided into 2 sub-parts: 20 minutes to write a letter (General Training)/report or chart or figure description (Academic) and 40 minutes to write an essay.
  • Speaking : definitely takes up to 15 minutes and consists of 3 parts: Personal Interview, Little Speech and a Discussion.

All the parts continue one after another, and only before Speaking you get a break.

Listening at a glance

Listening consists of 4 sections. There are 40 questions in total. You need to answer all the questions as you listen to the recording. Recording is not paused at any time and you hear it only once. The questions get more difficult as you progress through the test. Listening is the same for General Training and Academic modules.

Reading at a glance

Reading consists of 3 sections (three text passages for Academic and up to 5 articles, passages and advertisements for General Training) and about 40 questions in total. Your job is to read the text and either answer questions, label diagrams, complete sentences or fill gaps. For every type of task there are instructions. Passages are taken from books, newspapers, magazines and the topics are very diverse. There is no additional time to copy your answers to Answering Sheet.

Writing at a glance

Writing has 2 sub-tasks. First one is to write a letter (General Training) or describing facts and figures (Academic) according to scenario you receive, using about 150 words. The second task is to write an Essay on given topic, present and justify opinion or give solution to a problem, using not less than 250 words.

Nothing to worry here! Once you’ll start using a certain structure in addition to your imagination, it is a piece of cake. This task requires a bit of training, but after you write a few essays and letters or reports you will be well-prepared for it and you will feel confident.

Speaking at a glance

This is the fun part of the test, for many reasons. The examiners are trained to smile no matter what, so you feel as if you were speaking to your best friend. First sub-part of Speaking test is an interview, which means that the examiner asks you questions about yourself, your work, studies, parents, brothers/sisters, pets, etc. This is an easy task to prepare for.

In the second sub-part of Speaking test you receive a card with 3-4 questions. After one minute, that you have to think about something to say, you should give a little speech for one to two minutes, which answers those questions. In the end, the examiner might ask you a couple of additional questions.

In the third sub-part of the test you have a discussion with examiner. The topic is somehow related to the one from section two, but it is about more abstract ideas. You have to express and justify an opinion.

The examiner will record your session on tape. Don't worry! The recording is to test the examiner and not you.

These links will give you good information about IELTS, Have a fun!!!! Good luck.