🌍 IELTS Course

Academic is for university and postgraduate admission and some professional registration; its reading and writing use academic texts and data description. General Training is for migration, work or school-level courses, with letters and everyday texts. Listening and speaking are identical, but reading and writing are completely different, so confirm which one your institution requires.

Each of the four sections (listening, reading, writing, speaking) is scored 0 to 9, and the overall band is the average rounded to the nearest 0.5. Institutions usually set an overall score plus minimums per section, for example 6.5 overall with no band below 6.0. Some subjects (medicine, law, education) require more, and some accept a combined score from two sittings.

It depends on your starting point. Moving from about 5.5 to 6.5 typically takes 8 to 12 weeks of structured practice. Going from 6.5 to 7.5 often takes longer because writing and speaking are graded against band descriptors that are harder to hit. Take one full mock test first, then focus on your weakest section.

Listening is about 30 minutes (plus 10 minutes transfer time on paper), Reading 60 minutes, Writing 60 minutes for two tasks, and Speaking 11 to 14 minutes face to face with an examiner. You can sit paper-based or computer-delivered; the computer test still uses a human examiner for speaking.