What IELTS is
Academic against General Training, who needs which, and how the result is used by universities, employers and immigration authorities.
This page would state facts about the official test: timings, question counts, how bands are worked out. We only publish those from the official published material, cited here. We will not write them from memory, because being confidently wrong on a page like this is worse than leaving it empty.
- The official IELTS guidance on Academic against General Training — who each version is for, and how they differ.
- The official statement of how long a result is valid and how receiving organisations use it.
We hold the official Writing and Speaking band descriptors, so how writing and speaking are marked is written in full, cited, and is the same table your work is marked against here.
Meanwhile, the thing that actually changes your preparation is knowing where you stand. The assessment is free and marks all four skills.
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