IELTS Exam Pattern & Complete Details

The International English Testing System or the IELTS exam is conducted to check the fluency of migrants in the English language. The exam will test your ability to write, speak and read in the English language. Hence, the exam is designed as such that it will test your abilities in all of these parameters.

English speaking countries such as the UK, US, Australia and Canada usually consider the IELTS score for migrants. Therefore, it becomes crucial that you score well in the exam.

IELTS Exam Details

At present, the test is globally recognized by 11,000+ employers, universities, schools, and immigration bodies. With more than 3.5 million candidates attempting the test, the IELTS exam has become the most popular test for 30+ years in testing one’s language skills.

The test is jointly conducted by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia, and Cambridge Assessment English. You can attempt the test either on the computer or on paper. The candidates can choose the test dates as per their suitability. The results can be expected to be announced within 3-5 days. If you choose to attempt on the computer, the reading, writing, and listening section will be conducted online. However, the speaking test would be conducted with the examiner face-to-face.

The speaking test will be conducted face-to-face regardless of the medium you choose to take your test on. Furthermore, the score will be graded on a range of 1-9 depending upon your skill level.

IELTS Exam Syllabus

Writing Section: 2 Questions; 60 minutes

In the writing section, you will be presented with an academic module and be required to answer in the form of short essays, reports or justify/evaluate the core ideas.

There will be two compulsory questions: 

• Question 1: a diagram or data would be presented, and the candidates would be required to interpret the information in their own words. The word limit is 150 words.
• Question 2: a problem set or an argument would be provided, and the candidates would be asked to analyse, justify, or present a general factual statement regarding the same.

Reading Section: 40 Questions; 30 minutes

• There will be three passages dealing with topics of general interest. A total of 40 questions will be asked from these passages.
• The nature of questions will range from identifying the writer’s views, sentence completion, matching phrases or answering passage-related short-answer questions.

Listening Section: 40 Questions; 30 minutes

• There will be four audio sections, with the audios being around 3 minutes long. The first two audios will be related to social issues while the remaining two will be related to education.
• The audios will be in the form of conversations. They could be either monologues or dialogues. You can hear these conversations only once.
• The questions asked could range from sentence completion, note completion, labelled diagrams, etc.

Speaking Section: 3 parts: Personal Interview, Some Speaking, General Discussion; 11-14 minutes

• The main purpose of the speaking section is to analyse if the candidates have the required knowledge and skills to effectively communicate with native speakers.

Scoring in the IELTS exam does not require very advanced knowledge of the English language. The only purpose of the IELTS exam is to assure whether a candidate can effectively communicate with native speakers.