IELTS band scores explained

1Why one section can still cost you an offer

Most universities set two numbers: an overall band and a minimum for each section. An offer that says "6.5 overall with no band below 6.0" is refused if your Writing is 5.5, even when your overall is 7.0. Read the full requirement, not just the headline number.

Writing is the section that most often falls below the minimum for Indian students, so give it more time than feels fair.

2How Listening and Reading are marked

Each of the 40 questions is worth one mark. Your raw score is converted to a band using a table that changes slightly from test to test. The figures below are approximate and only meant to show the shape of the scale.

• Listening: about 23 correct is band 6.0, about 30 is band 7.0, about 35 is band 8.0.
• Academic Reading: about 23 correct is band 6.0, about 30 is band 7.0, about 35 is band 8.0.
• General Training Reading needs more correct answers for the same band, around 34 for band 7.0.

3How Writing and Speaking are marked

An examiner scores you against four criteria, each equally weighted. For Writing they are Task Achievement (Task Response for Task 2), Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Task 2 counts for twice as much as Task 1. For Speaking the criteria are Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation.

This is why memorised answers fail. An answer that does not fit the question scores low on task response or coherence however polished the vocabulary is.