IELTS practice activities and resources

Road to IELTS: Test Drive - Free IELTS e-learning and assessment

Practice your IELTS listening

  'Road to IELTS' is British Council's e-learning and assessment tool for people preparing to take the IELTS test. ‘Road to IELTS: Test Drive’ provides free access to 10 hours of preparation materials including listening tests, reading and writing exercises and mock tests designed to help you develop your exam skills.

 Try these practice activities for the IELTS Listening test from the British Council's LearnEnglish website.
 

Practice your IELTS speaking

 Watch this series of videos from the British Council's LearnEnglish website, designed to help you prepare for the IELTS Speaking test.

Improve your general English listening skills

 A comprehensive range of high-quality learning materials is available to help improve your English listening skills at the British Council's iTunes University site (note you will require iTunes to view this content).
 

Download our free android app

 British Council IELTS Word Power is a vocabulary practice app for IELTS test takers. With over 100 questions to test your word power, this app helps to build vocabulary in preparation for the IELTS test.

IELTS test day advice

Your IELTS test day

You need to arrive in good time for your IELTS test. If you arrive late, you may not be allowed to take the test.
Switch off your mobile phone and any other electronic devices. You will be asked to place these with other personal belongings outside the test room.
The Listening, Reading and Writing tests take 2 hours 40 minutes and there are no breaks between each part of the test.
Make sure you are prepared and have something to eat and drink beforehand. You will not be allowed to take food into the test room; you will only be allowed to take a drink in a transparent bottle.

During the IELTS test

You will only be allowed to have a pen or pencil, an eraser and your ID on your desk.
If you need to go to the bathroom during the test, put your hand up to attract the attention of the invigilator. Do not disturb other candidates.
If you have any questions during the test, raise your hand to ask for help.
When you take the Listening test, check that you can hear the test properly. Raise your hand straightaway and let the invigilator know if you cannot hear the recording.
Please remember that you will have 10 minutes after the Listening section to fill in your answer sheet. You will not have 10 minutes after the Reading section, so please make sure that you write your answers on your Reading answer sheet as you complete each section

How to prepare for the IELTS test

The first step is to make sure you understand the IELTS test format. You need to know what will be expected of you on test day.

• Study the test format to make sure that you know what to expect.
• Look carefully at the content of each part of the IELTS test: listening, reading, writing and speaking.
• Get to know the different types of questions that you may be asked in each part.

Once you are familiar with the IELTS test format, you will need to undertake a number of focused preparation activities. 

• Examine our IELTS practice test papers and answers.
• Take practice tests under timed conditions.
• Practise with the British Council's IELTS online preparation resources, available free when you book your test with the British Council.
• Buy IELTS self-study books and materials.
• Consider taking an IELTS preparation course with the British Council.
• Review our IELTS test day advice.

Warning!

 Some native English speakers are surprised to find that they score lower grades than non-native English speakers who have only been studying English for a few years. This can happen if you take IELTS unprepared. If you are a native English speaker and need to take IELTS to emigrate, make sure you prepare for the test!

IELTS use for immigration purposes for New Zealand and Canada

New Zealand

New Zealand has used the IELTS test since 1995. Initially, level 5 scores in each of the four modules were required of the prospective applicants; those who could not achieve required scores could pay a NZ$20,000 fee instead, which would be fully or partially refunded later if the migrant were able to successfully take the test within a certain period (3 to 12 months) after his or her arrival to the country. A few years later, the policy was changed: the fee was reduced, and, instead of being potentially refundable, it became treated as a "pre-purchase" of post-arrival ESL tuition.
Presently, applicants desiring to achieve permanent residence in New Zealand via the "Entrepreneur Category" migration programme must prove a "reasonable" level of competence in English. Unless the applicant has studied and/or worked for a sufficiently long period in New Zealand or other English-speaking countries, this normally should be demonstrated by achieving the overall band of 6.5 on the IELTS.

Canada

Citizenship and Immigration Canada uses the results of IELTS and/or TEF as a conclusive evidence of one's ability to communicate in English and/or French. For the purposes of the skill-based immigration points test, one receives separate points based on his or her performance on each of the four modules (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) or IELTS; the score of 4 on a particular IELTS module is sufficient to earn the maximum points for this particular capacity, except for the listening module, which requires the score of 8 to earn the maximum points.
The CELPIP (Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program) test scores are mentioned by the Canadian immigration application forms as an alternative to IELTS.
Submitting one's IELTS scores is also one of the several ways to evidence one's proficiency in an official language when applying for Canadian citizenship.

IELTS use for immigration purposes for Australia and UK

Australia

 Australia's immigration authorities have used IELTS to assess English proficiency of prospective migrants since May 1998, when this test replaced the access: test that had been previously used.
As of July 2012, applicants for Australia's Independent Migrant visa (permanent residence) must either score at least 6 on each of the modules of IELTS, or score at least "A" on Australia's Occupational English Test.
One can receive a "partial credit" (fewer points on the point test that determines one's eligibility for the migrant's visa) for having merely a "competent" level of English, which requires scoring at least 6 on each of the modules of IELTS. Prospective migrants who are citizens of the majority-English-speaking countries (United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, or Republic of Ireland) may choose to automatically receive the credit for the "competent" level of English merely by virtue of their citizenship, without taking tests; however, if they desire to show the "proficient" level (e.g. in order to obtain a sufficiently high overall score on the migration point test) they still must take the IELTS or OET.

United Kingdom

 Under the UK's "Points Based System Tier 1" (General Migrant) programme, applicants can receive 10 points for their English language qualification if it is deemed "equivalent to the Council of Europe's Common European Framework for Language Learning level C1", which is said to approximately equivalent to IELTS level 6.5, or GCSE Grade C. Having gained a university degree from an English-medium institution is an acceptable alternative proof of one's English level.^[28]

Band chart and Conversion table

9	Expert User	Has full operational command of the language: appropriate, accurate and fluent with complete understanding.
8	Very Good User	Has full operational command of the language with only occasional unsystematic inaccuracies and inappropriacies. Misunderstandings may occur in unfamiliar situations. Handles complex detailed argumentation well.
7	Good User	Has operational command of the language, though with occasional inaccuracies, inappropriateness and misunderstandings in some situations. Generally handles complex language well and understands detailed reasoning.
6	Competent User	Has generally effective command of the language despite some inaccuracies, inappropriacies and misunderstandings. Can use and understand fairly complex language, particularly in familiar situations.
5	Modest user	Has partial command of the language, coping with overall meaning in most situations, though is likely to make many mistakes. Should be able to handle basic communication in own field.
4	Limited User	Basic competence is limited to familiar situations. Has frequent problems in using complex language.
3	Extremely Limited User	Conveys and understands only general meaning in very familiar situations.
2	Intermittent User	No real communication is possible except for the most basic information using isolated words or short formulae in familiar situations and to meet immediate needs.
1	Non bad User	Essentially has no ability to use the language beyond possibly a few isolated words.
0	Did not attempt the test	No assessable information provided at all.

Duration and Band scale

Duration

The total test duration is around 2 hours and 45 minutes for Listening, Reading and Writing modules.

• Listening: 40 minutes, 30 minutes for which a recording is played centrally and additional 10 minutes for transferring answers onto the OMR answer sheet.
• Reading: 60 minutes.
• Writing: 60 minutes.
• Speaking: 11–14 minutes.

(Note: No additional time is given for transfer of answers in Reading and Writing modules)
The first three modules - Listening, Reading and Writing (always in that order) - are completed in one day, and in fact are taken with no break in between. The Speaking Module may be taken, at the discretion of the test centre, in the period seven days before or after the other Modules.
The tests are designed to cover the full range of ability from non-user to expert user.

Band scale

IELTS is scored on a nine-band scale, with each band corresponding to a specified competence in English. Overall Band Scores are reported to the nearest half band.
The following rounding convention applies: if the average across the four skills ends in .25, it is rounded up to the next half band, and if it ends in .75, it is rounded up to the next whole band.