The IELTS General Training Test is designed for applicants who intend to migrate for employment purposes or undergo a non-academic form of training in an English speaking country.
So in short, the IELTS General Training Test is for those who plan to migrate to a foreign country for:
The test duration for the IELTS General Training, same as the IELTS Academic, is 2 hours and 45 minutes.
The Listening and Speaking sections for both the tests (Academic and General Training) are the same, while the topic subject in the Reading and Writing sections will differ.
The Listening Test lasts for 30 minutes in total. Those attempting it as a paper-based test will be given an additional 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheets, while those attempting it as a computer-based test will be given 2 mins for rechecking the answers. The test consists of 4 parts, where the difficulty level will increase after each part. There’ll be 40 questions in total, with each part having 10 questions, and each question carrying 1 mark.
Both General Training and Academic Reading Tests take 60 minutes. But while the Academic test contains 3 long texts with subject material taken mostly from books or journals, the General Training test contains 3 sections, in which section 3 will contain a long text that is mostly taken from advertisements, guidebooks or notices. Section 1 will contain 2 or 3 small texts that are related to everyday life in an English speaking country and section 2 will contain 2 or 3 small texts that are related to work.
Similar to the Reading test, both the General Training and Academic Writing Tests take 60 minutes. And both the tests contain 2 tasks where task 2 is an essay of at least 250 words. The difference comes in task 1, where the Academic test will ask you to describe a table, chart or diagram, while in the General Training Test, you’ll have to write a letter.
The Speaking Test goes for around 12-15 minutes and consists of 3 parts. Part 1, will be around your childhood, background, family, friends, hobbies, and so on. For Part 2, you’ll get a cue card with a topic, on which you’ll have to speak about. And Part 3, you’ll be asked more in-depth questions related to the topic you received earlier.
