Saturday, April 14, 2018

IELTS Exam format

The exam consists of four parts: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking.

Listening - 30 minutes ( + 10 minutes transfer time )
There are 40 questions with equal weightage. They are spread among 4 sections with 10 each.
1. Conversation between 2 people in an everyday life context.
2. Monologue on an everyday life context.
3. Conversation among more people in an academic context.
4. Monologue on an academic context.
Every section would begin with a period to read questions. This would give a clue on what to hear for.

Reading - 60 minutes
There are 40 questions with equal weightage. They are spread among 3 passages with increasing difficulty level.
1. It contains 2 or 3 short factual texts related to everyday life.
2. It contains 2 short factual texts related to work life.
3. It contains 1 long complex test on a general topic.

Writing - 60 minutes
There are 2 tasks and British Council recommends to spend 20 and 40 minutes respectively on tasks 1 and 2. At least 150 and 250 words are expected in tasks 1 and 2 respectively.
1. A situation would be provided for which a letter needs to be written. Writing style could be personal, semi-formal or formal.
2. Essay must be writen in response to a point of view, argument or problem.
Task 2 is worth twice as much as task 1.

Speaking - around 30 minutes
There are 3 parts.
1. Introduction and pleasantries exchange followed by general discussion would happen.
2. Need to speak about a topic. 1 - 2 minutes would be given to collect your thoughts.
3. Discussion about part 2. A chance to convery more about part 2 topic.

While other tests happen one after another without a break, speaking test is scheduled independent of other tests. British Council promises to schedule speaking test within 7 days before or after. Typically, it is scheduled on the following day.
Prep books might give more information about each tests such as types of letters in writing task 1. It needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The information written above is faithfully taken from British Council site.

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