IELTS General Training study guide
IELTS General Training · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
IELTS General Training is one of the test types offered within the IELTS family, and it is delivered at a test centre. According to the official IELTS site, you choose it if you wish to migrate to an English-speaking country such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the UK, or if you wish to train or study at below degree level. The IELTS General Training study guide has 4 sections and about 1,545 words.
01IELTS General Training Listening: four parts, one play, zero margin for paraphrase
Listening opens the exam: roughly 30 minutes of audio, 40 questions, four parts, and every recording is played once . Part 1 is a transactional conversation (enrolling on a course, booking a van); Part 2 is a monologue about an everyday facility or service; Part 3 is an academic discussion, usually a tutor with one or two students; Part 4 is a lecture with no pause and the highest question density.
378 words, about 2 min02IELTS General Training Reading: three sections, 60 minutes, no transfer time
Reading gives you 60 minutes for 40 questions and no extra time to transfer answers , unlike Listening, so answers must go onto the answer sheet as you go. The paper has three sections of increasing difficulty.
368 words, about 2 min03IELTS General Training Writing: a 150-word letter and a 250-word essay
Writing is 60 minutes for two tasks. Task 1 is a letter of at least 150 words, worth about one third of the Writing band and best kept to 20 minutes.
408 words, about 2 min04IELTS General Training Speaking: three parts scored on four equal criteria
Speaking lasts 11–14 minutes, face to face with a trained examiner, and is recorded. Four criteria carry equal weight: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation.
391 words, about 2 min