IELTS course overview
IELTS Academic Overview
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS Academic), managed by British Council, IDP, and Cambridge, is a key English proficiency test for higher education. Widely accepted in the UK, Australia, Canada, and beyond.
Listening (30 minutes, 40 questions): 4 recordings (conversations/lectures). (30 minutes + 10 minutes transfer time)
This section consists of 40 questions across four recordings, including everyday conversations and academic monologues, played only once.
It tests your ability to understand main ideas, specific details, opinions, and inferences in spoken English with various accents.
Question types include multiple choice, matching, note completion, and sentence completion.
Speaking (11–14 minutes): 3-part interview.
Conducted as a face-to-face (or video-call) interview in three parts: Part 1 introduces general questions about familiar topics; Part 2 involves speaking for 1–2 minutes on a given topic with preparation time.
Part 3 features deeper discussion on abstract ideas related to Part 2.
It assesses fluency, coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range, and pronunciation in real-time conversation.
Reading (60 minutes, 40 questions): 3 academic texts.
The Reading section features 40 questions based on three long academic texts sourced from books, journals, or newspapers.
It assesses skills like skimming, scanning, understanding logical arguments, and identifying writers’ opinions or attitudes.
Tasks include multiple choice, identifying information (true/false/not given), matching headings/features/sentence endings, and sentence/summary/note completion.
Writing (60 minutes, 2 tasks): Task 1 (describe visual data, 150+ words); Task 2 (essay, 250+ words).
This section includes two tasks: Task 1 (20 minutes recommended) requires describing, summarizing, or explaining visual information (e.g., graphs, charts, or diagrams) in at least 150 words.
Task 2 (40 minutes recommended) involves writing an essay (at least 250 words) responding to a point of view, argument, or problem.
It evaluates your ability to present clear, coherent ideas, use appropriate vocabulary and grammar, and organize information effectively.
