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Overview of the IELTS Test

Start your IELTS preparation here with an overview of each part of the test: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

by Tim Martyn

Table of contents

Listening

Here are some key points about listening in the IELTS test:

Here’s an overview of the 4 parts.

Part
1	a conversation between two speakers in an everyday social context (e.g. asking for information about a gym membership)
2	a monologue in an everyday social context (e.g. speech about school facilities)
3	a conversation between up to four speakers in an academic context (e.g. a student asking a tutor about an assignment)
4	a monologue in an academic context (e.g. a university lecture)

A variety of question types are used.

Here are some key points about reading in the IELTS test:

There are 3 reading passages with a total of 40 questions.
Each passage has 12–14 questions.
The passages gradually become more difficult. That is, READING PASSAGE 1 is the easiest and READING PASSAGE 3 is the most difficult.
The reading section takes 60 minutes in total.
Each question is worth one mark.
The passages are taken from books, journals, magazines and newspapers. They’re authentic and academic but written for a non-specialist audience.
The style of the passages may be narrative, descriptive or argumentative. At least one of the passages will contain detailed logical argument.
If a passage contains technical terms that need to be understood in order to answer a question, a simple glossary is provided.

A variety of question types are used.

Here are some key points about writing in the IELTS test:

Here’s an overview of Task 1.

Writing time	Length	What you need to do
About 20 minutes	At least 150 words	Describe and summarise visual information in the form of a Bar chart, Diagram, Line graph, Map, Pie chart or Table, or any combination of these

Assessment criteria:

Here’s an overview of Task 2.

Writing time	Length	What you need to do
About 40 minutes	At least 250 words	Write an essay in response to a point of view, argument or problem. Discussion, Opinion, Advantages–disadvantages and Two-part essay questions are all common.

Assessment criteria:

Here are some key points about speaking in the IELTS test:

Here’s an overview of the various parts.

	Timing	What you need to do
Part 1	4–5 minutes	Answer questions about familiar topics such as home, family and work
Part 2	3–4 minutes	Speak for 1–2 minutes in response to a task card (following 1 minute of preparation time)
Part 3	4–5 minutes	Answer more detailed and abstract questions about the topic from Part 2

Assessment criteria: