IELTS ACADEMIC

• The IELTS Academic test is suitable for those wanting to study in an English-speaking environment or university (higher education). You can also take IELTS Academic for professional registration purposes.

The test measures if you are ready to begin studying in English. It features vocabulary that is familiar within an academic setting.

Listening

The paper has four parts, with ten questions in each part. The questions are in the same order as the information in the recording, so the answer to the first question will be before the answer to the second question, and so on.

Parts 1 and 2 deal with everyday, social situations. There is a conversation between two speakers in Part 1 (for example, a conversation about travel arrangements). Only one person speaks in Part 2 (for example, a speech about local facilities).

Parts 3 and 4 deal with educational and training situations. In Part 3 there is a conversation between two main speakers (for example, two university students in discussion, perhaps guided by a tutor). In Part 4 only one person speaks on an academic subject.

You will hear the recordings once only. Different accents, including British, Australian, New Zealand and North American, are used.

Time allowed: Approximately 30 minutes (plus 10 minutes to transfer your answers to an answer sheet)

Number of parts: 4

Number of questions: 40

Marking: Each correct answer receives 1 mark. Your final score is given as a band score in whole or half bands, e.g. 5.5 or 7.0.

Reading

There are three sections of increasing difficulty. Each section has an academic passage.

Time allowed: 60 minutes (including transfer time)

Number of sections: 3; the total text length is 2150–2750 words

Number of questions: 40

Marking: Each correct answer receives 1 mark. Your final score is given as a band score from 1–9 in whole or half bands, e.g. 3 or 8.5.

Writing

There are two Writing tasks and BOTH must be completed.

In Task 1, you have to elaborate a report  You need to write at least 150 words in about 20 minutes.

In Task 2, you are given a point of view, argument or problem which you need to discuss. You need to write at least 250 words in about 40 minutes

Marking

Certificated IELTS examiners assess your performance on each Writing task. There are four assessment criteria (things which the examiner thinks about when deciding what score to give you):

• Task achievement/response
• Coherence and cohesion
• Lexical resource
• Grammatical range and accuracy.

Time allowed: 60 minutes

Number of tasks: 2

Marking: Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to the Writing score.

Speaking

The Speaking test is a face-to-face interview between the test taker and an examiner. The Speaking test is recorded.

There are three parts to the test, and each part follows a specific pattern of tasks in order to test your speaking ability in different ways.

Marking

Certificated IELTS examiners assess your speaking performance throughout the test. There are four assessment criteria (things which the examiner thinks about when deciding what score to give you):

• Fluency and coherence
• Lexical resource
• Grammatical range and accuracy
• Pronunciation.

Time allowed: 11–14 minutes

Number of parts: 3