A lot of students ask, how can I practice for my IELTS test at home?
It doesn’t matter whether you are doing the General Training IELTS test or the Academic IELTS test, there are lots of resources to help you prepare.
Important tips to remember when practising for IELTS
The important thing is for test-takers to make sure they understand the test format, get plenty of IELTS practice by doing timed practice tests (ideally at least one full practice test a week), read and listen to model answers and continue to improve language skills by learning as much new vocabulary as possible. You need a clear idea of the band score you need to achieve so that you will be looking at the best model answers for you.
How many hours of practice do I need to improve my IELTS Score?
It takes around 80 hours of focused study to increase your band score by 0.5 so you will need a lot of IELTS practice and the more IELTS practice tests you have access to, the better chance you have of doing well in your real IELTS exam.
Test takers should decide whether they want to do the paper-based test on the computer-based test. If you’re doing paper-based, make sure you print out at least some of the tests and practice them at home, under test conditions. You can still do part of your studying and practice tests online but it’s important to be familiar with the test procedure.
You can practice for the computer-based tests here
How to practice for the IELTS Test
The IELTS test assesses your abilities in all four skills – listening, reading, writing and speaking – in under three hours.
Prepare for IELTS with free practice tests and answers. Time yourself and develop your exam technique.
Free IELTS practice tests in this section offer you the opportunity to:
- Get to know the test format
- Experience the types of tasks you will be asked to undertake
- Test yourself under timed conditions
- Review your answers and compare them with model answers.
Remember, you will take the Listening, Reading and Writing tests all on one day with no breaks in between, so as you get closer to your test date, it is important to do the practice tests under similar conditions. If you prefer to practice offline, download the tests, blank answer sheets, transcripts and answers before you begin your practice test.
You can find a free online IELTS practice test here for all four sections of the exam.
Academic IELTS test contents:
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LISTENING – 30 MINUTES
Four recorded monologues and conversions
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READING – 60 MINUTES
Three long reading passages with tasks. Texts are authentic (from books or newspapers) and range from descriptive and factual to discursive and analytical. They may include non-verbal materials such as diagrams, graphics or illustrations. A variety of questions is used, chosen from the following types: multiple-choice, identifying information, identifying writer’s views/claims, matching information, matching headings, matching features, matching sentence endings, sentence completion, summary completion, note completion, table completion, flow-chart completion, diagram label completion, short-answer questions. Make sure you practice all these question types!
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WRITING – 60 MINUTES
Task 1: You will be asked to describe some visual information (graph/table/chart/diagram), and to present the description in your own words. You may be asked to describe and explain data, describe the stages of a process, how something works, or describe an object or event. You need to write 150 words in about 20 minutes.
Task 2: You will be presented with a point of view, argument or problem. You need to write 250 words in about 40 minutes.
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SPEAKING – 11 TO 14 MINUTES
This will be a Face to face interview. It Includes short questions, speaking at length about a familiar topic and a structured discussion.
Remember that the listening and speaking components are the same for both IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training.
IELTS General Training contents:
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LISTENING – 30 MINUTES
Four recorded monologues and conversions
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READING – 60 MINUTES
Three long authentic text reading passages with tasks.
Section 1 contains two or three factual texts.
Section 2 contains two shorts, work-related, factual texts.
Section 3 contains one longer text on a topic of general interest.
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WRITING – 60 MINUTES
Task 1: You will be asked to write a letter – it could be a complaint, application, invitation or giving advice. There are a lot of examples here. You need to write 150 words in about 20 minutes.
Task 2 – a short essay task of at least 250 words, the same as task 2 in Academic IELTS.
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SPEAKING – 11 TO 14 MINUTES
This will be a Face to face interview. It Includes short questions, speaking at length about a familiar topic and a structured discussion.
You can find additional information about the test format on the IELTS website.
How can I get a particular score (6.5 or 8.0) in IELTS?
For more information about how IELTS scores are calculated, see IELTS scoring in detail.
It’s important to look at example writing task answers that would score the band you are going for and listen to example speaking answers on Youtube to check you are at a similar level.
