Eleven to fourteen minutes, three parts, one examiner. You arrive, your photo ID goes through an ID check, and then you talk: Part 1, a Part 2 card with one minute of preparation, then Part 3, all of it recorded. Four marking criteria produce the band, not five, and the IELTS Speaking test format sets […]

Four to eight weeks of short daily practice moves IELTS Speaking by one band, and seven days only stops you losing marks you already had. A preparation routine that works is small and repetitive: a fifteen-minute daily session, recorded practice you listen back to, and one fix per session aimed at a single criterion. This […]

Matching paragraph information hands you a set of statements and the passage’s paragraph letters. Beside each statement you write the letter of the paragraph that contains its specific detail. The answers ignore passage order, and one paragraph can answer two statements. That reuse is what makes the type expensive. It is the only Reading question […]

A matching headings task hands you a list of headings and asks which one sums up each of the passage’s paragraphs. There are always spare headings, and the answers run in non-linear order, so the reliable move is elimination rather than matching. This guide covers what the task is, how many headings you get, and […]

IELTS Reading matching features hands you numbered statements and a lettered list of options, and you write the letter of the option each statement belongs to. Many publishers call the same task matching names. Two rules make it different. The answers ignore passage order, and one option can be used more than once, so you […]

Matching sentence endings gives you a set of sentence beginnings and a longer list of lettered endings, and you pick the letter that finishes each one the way the passage does. The list is longer on purpose. Half of it can be crossed off on grammar alone, before you read a word of the passage. […]

You are handed a statement and three words to choose from, and the passage alone decides which word is right. Yes No Not Given questions in IELTS Reading ask whether a statement matches the writer’s opinion, opposes it, or falls outside the text because there is not enough information to judge. The qualifying words usually […]

IELTS Reading gives you three passages and forty questions in sixty minutes. Those sixty minutes also cover copying every answer onto the answer sheet, so pacing decides as many marks as comprehension does. This guide covers the reading test format, the Academic and General Training passages, the assessed skills, and the eleven question types. It […]

Table completion hands you a grid with some cells left blank, and you fill them with words taken straight from the passage. Every gap sits under a column heading and beside a row label. Those two labels fix the category of the answer, whether that is a year, a cost, a material or a name. […]

Flow chart completion gives you a sequence of boxes joined by arrows, and you fill the blank ones with words taken from the passage. The arrows carry a promise. The boxes follow the passage’s own order, so once box 3 is filled you never look back for box 4. Every chart is one of two […]

Diagram labelling gives you a picture with some labels missing and a passage that describes the object in words. You copy the missing labels straight from that passage. The official name is diagram label completion, and “labelling a diagram” means the same task. This guide covers what the task is, the word limit rule, the […]

IELTS reading comprehension means locating a stated answer in the passage and proving the passage really says it, inside sixty minutes. Most comprehension advice online is written for school students or aptitude tests, and two of its rules are wrong here: never read the passage first, and answer in your own words. In IELTS you […]