The IELTS exam stands for International English Language Testing System.

It is an exam first started in 1980 by Cambridge University and the British Council to measure competency in the English language.

It is one of the more important English exams as it has a degree of official validity in that sometimes for visa applicants from foreign countries to enter England and study here they are required to demonstrate a certain degree of fluency in English via performing the IELTS exam. It is also used even for native English speakers who wish to migrate to other Anglophone countries such as a Briton wishing to migrate to Australia.

IELTS for university

However it is often for university courses that IELTS is commonly associated with. Many British universities require students to have attained a specific mark in IELTS in order to be eligible to study in their institution. This varies from place to place but a 6.5 overall is often sufficient for a good university.

IELTS grades.

The IELTS exam consists of four parts. Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. There is no “Use of English” as in the Cambridge suite exams such as the FCE or CAE.

The highest mark in each of these four parts and in the exam overall is 9.

9 in theory means that your English is as good as a highly educated native speaker e.g. a lawyer, doctor and so forth.

A 7.5 is what is usually required from medical professionals from overseas and also the level needed to study in Britain’s top universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. 7.5 in IELTS is said to be equivalent to C1 level according to the CEFR system or equivalent to Cambridge Advanced (Please ask for more information in the comments section below if you need more clarification on that)

Cambridge university

As mentioned previously 6.5 is what is often required by many very good British universities, whose degrees and certificates would grant the degree holder global recognition and respect, for example the world renowned Kings College in London. A 6.5 is considered a strong B2 in the CEFR system or equivalent to the Cambridge FCE.

Kings College, London.

A 5.5 is sufficient for quite a few British universities including former polytechnics, which also have global credibility and recognition and enable the degree holder from that university to gain top level employment in organisations around the world.

There is, “fortunately”, no way that you can fail the IELTS as a “pass” is simply you getting the grade that the university or organisation you are applying to requires of you. However psychologically it will be reassuring for many to know that there is simply no scenario whereby you would ever envision seeing a dreaded “fail” label.

Depending on the course or institution you are applying for you might be told that you need an overall 6.5 but you can get a 6 in one of the sections. So if you got 7 in reading, 6.5 in writing, 6.5 in listening, 6 in speaking you would pass, if however you got 5.5 then you would not have got the grades you need for that college.

You might also be told you need a minimum of 6.5 in every section.

The Structure of the IELTS exam.

Reading: The reading exam is 1 hour long and consists of 3 texts which you read and answer questions on. There are 40 questions in total.

Writing: The writing exam is 1 hour long too and consists of 2 writing tasks. The first is related to a diagram which could be table, pie chart, line graph, flow chart and so forth and you have to summarise in your own words the key contents and features of that diagram. No analysis is required and this is merely about description.

The second task consists of presenting your opinion on a given topic or question for example one IELTS writing task 2 question was, to paraphrase it in simple form, are people successful in fields such as music or art successful due to natural ability or by learning that skill? In other words a variant of the “nature v nurture” debate. For those not familiar with what the “nature v nurture” debate is. It is the discussion on whether successful people are born with certain inherent talents or whether they acquire them due to their environment e.g. receiving certain training and so forth. In task 2 you may often be asked to consider both points of view and then briefly present your own personal opinion.

Speaking: Speaking is 11-14 minutes and consists of 3 sections, namely an introductory section where you introduce yourself and ask certain questions related to your background and other topics, then the second section  where you are given a topic on a card, have one minute to prepare a short 1-2 minute presentation on it and then speak about that topic for 1-2 minutes. The third part is an extension of the topic discussed in the 2nd part but with more sophisticated questions asked by the examiner. For instance in the 2nd part you may have been asked to talk about transport in your town, and then in the third part you will be asked more complex questions e.g. about cars and the environment and so on.

It will only be you and the examiner and no one else unlike the Cambridge FCE and CAE exams where it is two students and the interloctuor who asks the questions (and the assessor often discreetly tucked behind in the corner silently taking notes).

Courtesy of freepik

Listening: Listening is 30 minutes and is composed of 4 audio clips all of which become progressively more detail and which you have to answer questions on, a total of 40 questions for the whole section.

This is in simple terms is the IELTS exam, however the whole purpose of this section of the English Made Simple (EMS) website is to help students to prepare better for IELTS and other academic exams. If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments section below!