Test format
Four modules, 40 questions each in Listening and Reading, and a total of about two hours and forty-five minutes before Speaking. Here is exactly what each part contains and how it is timed.
The same Listening paper is taken by Academic and General Training candidates. Four recordings are played once only, in increasing order of difficulty, and you answer as you listen.
On the computer-delivered test there is no separate ten-minute transfer time — you get two minutes at the end to check your answers, because there is no answer sheet to copy onto.
Academic Reading uses three long passages from books, journals and newspapers, written for a non-specialist audience. General Training Reading uses shorter workplace and social-survival texts in the first two sections and one longer general-interest text in the third.
There is no extra time for transferring answers in either version. Sixty minutes is all of it, which makes pacing the single most common reason for a low Reading band.
Task 2 is worth twice as much as Task 1, which is why the recommended split is 20 minutes on Task 1 and 40 on Task 2. Spending 30 minutes on a chart description is the most expensive habit in IELTS Writing.
Both tasks are marked on four equally-weighted criteria: task achievement or response, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy.
Speaking is a face-to-face interview with a certified examiner and is identical for Academic and General Training. It is recorded, and it is marked on fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation.
Listening and Speaking are the same in both. Reading and Writing Task 1 are different. Academic is normally required for university study and professional registration; General Training is normally required for work, training and migration routes. The organisation you are applying to decides which one you need — check before you book, because the two are not interchangeable.
The content, timing, question types and marking are identical. The differences are practical: computer-delivered tests are offered far more often, results arrive in a few days rather than around two weeks, and there is no answer-transfer time in Listening. Speaking is a live interview with an examiner in both formats.
Listening, Reading and Writing run back to back for about two hours and forty-five minutes with no break. The Speaking interview takes a further 11 to 14 minutes and may be on the same day or within a few days.
Listening has 40 questions and Reading has 40 questions. Writing has two tasks, and Speaking has three parts.
No. Listening, Reading and Writing are taken consecutively without a break, which is why practising them in one block matters.
Listening and Speaking are identical. Academic Reading uses long texts from academic sources and Academic Writing Task 1 is a data description; General Training Reading uses workplace and everyday texts and its Task 1 is a letter.
No. There is no negative marking, so you should answer every question — an unanswered item and a wrong one score the same.
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