What is IELTS Speaking Test?

 

The General Training and Academic versions of the IELTS have exactly the same speaking section. Your speaking section is an in-person interview. You will meet with an examiner who is going to ask you questions and give you some tasks to do to demonstrate your speaking ability. An interesting part of the IELTS exam is that you can take your speaking section on a different day as you work paper test. Your paper test is your listening, reading and writing sections, those you need to take on the same day. But the speaking section, can be on a different day. 

Time of speaking test

The speaking exam is not a long portion. It's only 11 to 15 minutes. You are going to be speaking almost that entire time. Therefore, you do need to prepare for it very, very well. The interviewer is going to be in control, thinking about the time, 11 to 15 minutes. Your examiner needs to get through all the different parts of the exam in a very short amount of time. Your examiners going to be in control of the time.

 

He or she may cut you off or maybe ask you to change topics or answer a different question before you feel that you've answered something completely and fully. The reason the examiner doing that is because he or she needs to get through everything. You should be worried about it or get upset about if the examiners pushing things in a way that you feel is maybe natural.

Format

There are three sections to the speaking test. Section one is the easiest part of the exam. The questions are going to just be about basic personal information, about your family, questions about your hometown. Maybe your hobbies or academic interests, places you've traveled, that kind of thing will be what the examiner will ask you to discuss.

This part lasts 4 to 5 minutes, and really you should think about it as kind of a warmup section for parts two and three, which do get more challenging. So just answer the simple questions the best you can. If you've been speaking English for a while and using it in your life in any capacity at all, you probably have discussed these topics that will come up in part one of the exam.

 

Part 2 is a monologue. A monologue is basically another word for a speech. You're going to give a very short speech. The whole section, the whole part two, lasts about 3 to 4 minutes. You're going to have a card that your examiner give you and on the card is going to be a topic.

You have 1 minute to prepare a short speech based on the topic and the points that you need to discuss on that card. You'll take a minute, you'll brainstorm, you'll plan a little bit. And then you'll speak, you'll give your monologue in about 1 to 2 minutes. After that, your examiner will probably ask you some follow-up questions about what you said.

 

Part 3 then is the most challenging section. Here the interview will resume for about 4 to 5 minutes. Your examiners are going to ask you more follow-up questions about the topic that you discussed in Part 2. However, the questions are gonna get more challenging. Your examiner is gonna ask you for your perspective, your opinion about a variety of things.

You're going to have to answer with more complicated responses because they are more longer and more detailed. And the questions the examiner will ask you will require more advanced vocabulary, more advanced grammar in order to answer them successfully. The questions tend to be more abstract and the topics just a little more complex.

 

In another section, we will provide more tips and tricks for achieving a high band score in the IELTS Speaking exam.