IELTS General Training test

The IELTS Speaking is the same for both General Training test and Academic test and assesses your use of spoken English. All speaking tests are conducted face-to-face with a certified IELTS examiner and are recorded in case they need to be reviewed.

The Speaking test takes between 11 and 14 minutes and consists of 3 parts. Part 1 is the first part of the test where the examiner will ask you some general questions about familiar topics like work, family, studies and hobbies.
In Part 2 you will be given a card with a topic. You will be given one minute to take notes on the topic and will be given a pencil and paper to prepare your response. You will then speak on the topic for two minutes. In Part 3 of the interview, you will have a two-way discussion with the examiner where they will ask questions related to the topic discussed in Part 2.

The Speaking test is conducted on the same day as the other tests with our centre, unless otherwise agreed with a school or institution.

The IELTS Listening is the same for both the IELTS Academic test and General Training test. The Listening test assesses your ability to understand main ideas, detailed information, opinions, purpose and attitudes of the speakers, as well as your ability to follow the development of ideas.

You will listen to 4 recordings in your Listening test and need to answer 40 questions based on these recordings. The first two recordings deal with situations you might experience in an everyday context. The last two recordings, however, focus on situations that might occur in an education or training context.

In recordings 1 and 3 you will hear a conversation between two or more speakers, however in recordings 2 and 4 will hear a monologue. You will need to answer questions connected to the recordings ranging from multiple choice to matching information, headings, features and sentence endings, as well as sentence, summary, note, table, diagram or flow-chart completion.

The General Training Reading test consists of three sections and 40 questions. It focuses on situations you might face in everyday life, work-related issues such as applying for a job, and topics of general interest. The extracts in each section are taken from books, magazines, newspapers, notices, advertisements, company handbooks and guidelines.

Section 1 looks at your social survival skills. The questions relate back to short texts that are relevant to everyday life in an English-speaking country. These might be notices, advertisements or timetables.

Section 2 takes a closer look at your workplace survival skills. The texts here are taken from job descriptions, contracts, staff development and training manuals, as well as pay and workplace condition documents.

Section 3 contains a long and more complex text on a topic of general interest. Texts could be taken from newspapers, magazine or books.

The reading part of the IELTS test looks at how well you can understand main ideas, details, inferences and implied meaning. It also assesses your ability to follow the development of an argument, recognise a writer’s opinion, attitudes and purpose.

The General Training Writing test is made up of two tasks, Writing Task 1 and Writing Task 2. The topics in each task are of general interest.

In Writing Task 1, you will be given a situation where you will need to write a letter to request information or explain the situation. You might be asked to write a letter to suggest how to improve facilities at a library. Examiners will look at your ability to provide general and factual information in relation to the task, express needs, wants, likes and dislikes, as well as opinions, views and complaints.

Writing Task 2 is a little different. You will be asked to write an essay in response to a point of view, argument or problem. You will be assessed on whether you can provide general factual information, outline a problem, present a solution, justify an opinion or evaluate and challenge ideas, evidence or an argument.