IELTS Academic: how the exam works and what to read for each section

This article is the way into everything else. First the exam as a whole: four sections, how long each one takes, the order they come in and how your answers turn into a score. Then a map of the blog: two paragraphs on each section and a link to the full guide. If you are just starting, read this page through, then follow the links to wherever you are weakest.

The exam as a whole

Section	Length	What you do	Questions
Listening	about 30 minutes	listen to four recordings and answer as they play	40
Reading	60 minutes	read three passages and answer the questions on them	40
Writing	60 minutes	describe a graph and write an essay	2 tasks
Speaking	11–14 minutes	talk to an examiner: questions about you, a monologue from a card, a discussion	3 parts

The three written sections run back to back with no break: Listening, Reading, Writing — about two and a half hours of continuous work. Speaking happens separately, on the same day or within a week either side, and always with a live examiner, even if you take the rest on a computer.

One consequence is easy to miss while preparing: stamina is part of the exam. You start Reading already tired from Listening, and you sit down to the essay after two hours of work. Practising sections in isolation does not prepare you for that — you need full tests taken in one sitting.

Academic and General Training differ only in Reading and Writing: Listening and Speaking are identical, while General Training uses everyday and workplace texts, has a more forgiving Reading band scale, and asks for a letter instead of a graph description in Task 1. Everything below is about Academic.

How answers turn into a score

Each section gets a band from 0 to 9 in steps of 0.5. In Listening and Reading your correct answers out of forty are converted to a band using a table; there is no penalty for a wrong answer, so never leave a field empty. In Writing and Speaking a human awards the band against four criteria, each weighted equally.

The overall score is the average of the four sections rounded to the nearest 0.5, with halves rounded up: 6.25 becomes 6.5 and 6.75 becomes 7.0. That makes one weak section expensive, and it is almost always better to lift your weakest section than to polish your strongest.

The practical conclusion: find out where you actually stand section by section with a full practice test, then spend your time on the gap. That is covered in How to start preparing for IELTS on your own on a small budget.

Listening

Four parts of ten questions, getting harder as they go: an everyday conversation, a monologue about a place or a service, a discussion between two or three people about study, and an academic lecture. The recording plays once, with no pausing or rewinding, and the questions follow the order of the audio. Most marks are lost not on understanding but on details: one word over the limit, a missing plural, a date or a spelled-out name.

In full, with every question type and a tactic for each: IELTS Listening: format, parts, timing and every question type.

Reading

Three passages and forty questions in 60 minutes, with no extra time to transfer answers. The passages get harder from the first to the third, and the questions are built on paraphrase almost every time: hunting for the same word you saw in the question will not work. Time discipline matters more than reading speed here — roughly twenty minutes per passage, and be ready to give up a hard question to win three easy ones.

In full, with every task type: IELTS Reading: format, the three passages, timing and every task type.

Writing

Two tasks in an hour: a description of a graph, table, process or map of at least 150 words, and an essay of at least 250. The essay is worth twice as much, so the twenty-minutes-for-the-graph, forty-for-the-essay line is worth holding firmly. Four criteria are assessed: task response, coherence, vocabulary and grammar. The commonest reason for a low band is not poor language but an unfinished job: no overview in the graph description, or no clear position in the essay.

The section overview, with the criteria and a plan for the hour: IELTS Writing: format, criteria, timing and how to prepare. Task guides: Task 1, describing a graph and Task 2, the band 7 essay.

Speaking

The shortest and most predictable section: 11–14 minutes to a fixed script. Part 1 is short questions about you, Part 2 a two-minute monologue from a card with a minute to prepare, Part 3 a discussion of a broader topic connected to the card. The examiner follows a protocol and may cut you off mid-sentence — that is not a judgement on your answer. There are four criteria here too, and fluency and developed answers count for more than rare words.

In full, with each part and the criteria: IELTS Speaking: format, the three parts, criteria and how to prepare.

How to build your preparation

The frame is the same for everyone: measure where you are with a full test, pick out the weak section, work on it deliberately, and once a week sit another full test under exam conditions. The theory about the format takes an evening to read; the score is moved by hours of practice with your mistakes reviewed.

How to start preparing for IELTS on your own on a small budget — a week-by-week plan and what not to skimp on.
Why IELTS preparation needs practice tests, not just textbooks — what a full test trains that a textbook cannot.
How to make your commute count: IELTS vocabulary with no internet — a vocabulary trainer that works in the metro with no connection.

You can practise in the format in Tilmashq: the interface, timings and task types are modelled on computer-delivered IELTS Academic, and Writing is marked against the four criteria with corrections. The tasks are our own, not from the exam; the marking is done by AI, which is stricter than an examiner on average, so read the band as "no lower than this".