The IELTS speaking test is a one-to-one interview which lasts for 11 – 14 minutes. There are 3 parts which test your spoken English skills with various types of questions. IELTS Speaking Part 1 In Part 1 you are asked simple questions about yourself and everyday topics. There are 3 topics in Part 1, with 4 questions in each. The first topic is either about what you do (work/study) OR where you live now / your hometown. Topics 2 and 3 could be anything related to daily life. For example; evenings, music, pets, art, news, photography, colours, the internet or whatever. Here are some example ques ..read more

IELTS Speaking Part 3 lasts 4-5 minutes. You will have to answer more complex questions related to the topic that you talked about in Part 2. Unlike Part 1, these questions are not personal – they are not about you. They are about people in general or people in your culture. You should expect Part 3 to get difficult, no matter how good your English is, as the examiner will try to find how high you can get on the IELTS scale. Part 3 is the time to show off your English ability. Really try your best to give full answers to each question including reasons. However, don’t over complicate it. First ..read more

Watch Aashish answer the questions in an IELTS Speaking Part 3 example test. Note that the video shows Part 1 from 00:00-03:36 and Part 3 is 03:37-08:45. As you watch, notice how he directly answers each question at the beginning of each answer, before going on to explain his views: Here are the questions Aashish is asked in this IELTS Speaking Part 3 example, together with how he begins each answer. Again, notice how he answers each question directly, right at the beginning of each answer, before going on to give more details, reasons and/or examples: “We’ve been talking about a well known p ..read more

In Part 2 of the IELTS Speaking Test you will be given a topic that you have to talk about for 1-2 minutes. You have 1 minute to think about what you are going to say and to make notes before you speak. You should use this part of the speaking test to show your fluency. Your goal should be to keep speaking for the whole 2 minutes and make it seem fairly effortless. Before the beginning of IELTS Speaking Part 2 the examiner will introduce the topic by saying; ‘Now I’m going to give you a topic and I’d like you to talk about it for one to two minutes. Before you talk, you will have one minute t ..read more

Watch Aashish complete an IELTS Speaking Part 1 example test. Here are the questions he is asked: Let’s talk about what you do. Do you work or are you a student? What job do you do? Do you meet interesting people in your job? How long have you been doing this sort of work? Let’s go on to talk about friends now. Are your friends mostly your age or different ages? Why? Do you usually see your friends during the week or at weekends? The last time you saw your friends, what did you do together? In what ways are your friends important to you? I’d like to move on to talk about food and cooking n ..read more

The IELTS Academic Writing Task 2 Band 9 Sample Answer below is a response to Academic Writing Task 2b, which you can download from the ielts.org website. The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace. Nuclear power provides cheap and clean energy. The benefits of nuclear technology far outweigh the disadvantages. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Some people suggest that nuclear technology has had more positive than negative impacts on the world. In this essay, I will outline both the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear technology and say why I disagree that the benefits out ..read more

The IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 Band 9 Sample Answer below is a response to Academic Writing Task 1a, which you can download from the ielts.org website. The chart below shows the number of men and women in further education in Britain in three periods and whether they were studying full-time or part-time. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. The chart shows how many male and female students were studying full-time or part-time in further education in Britain between 1970/71 and 1990/91. Overall, the vast majority of stu ..read more

In this post, I want to highlight for you 3 keys to success in the IELTS Academic Writing test: Keep it (mostly) simple – This relates to the IELTS writing marking criteria discussed here. Remember, in terms of vocabulary and grammar scores, students who use mainly simple, accurate language with a few less common / more complex examples will get higher scores in IELTS writing. The Importance of the Introduction – The introduction for both Task 1 and Task 2 is short but very important. It’s the first impression you make on the examiner, so make it count! Follow the Structure – Both Task 1 and ..read more

Read as much as possible. Yes, I know this is obvious but it really is by far the best way to prepare for IELTS Academic Reading and improve your English level in general. When you are reading you expose your brain to correct vocabulary and grammar usage. It is also much easier to remember new language when you see it in context, rather than in lists of words and/or grammar and vocabulary exercises. Over time, this will improve your language ability. Read as often as possible. It’s important to read everyday. You will improve much faster by reading everyday for 15 minutes than by reading onc ..read more

In this post we will go through an example IELTS Listening Section 3. In Section 3 you have to listen to two or three people discussing something in an academic context. In this example, a climate scientist is giving a seminar about a project and the tasks are notes / diagram completion and matching. First, you need to download the example questions and audio (if you have not done so already). Go to https://www.ielts.org/about-the-test/sample-test-questions Click on ‘Listening’. You will see there are 9 sample tasks you can download and print. For this lesson, you need Sample Task 9. As you g ..read more