Academic & General Training

IELTS practice test

Every paper is written for your attempt, so there is no answer key circulating and no passage you have already seen. Writing and Speaking come back with a band for each published criterion and the sentence from your own answer that earned it.

Free plan, no expiry · every exam on one paid plan from $14.99/month

The format we run on

Listening
30 minutes · 40 questions · 4 parts
Reading
60 minutes · 40 questions · 3 passages
Writing
60 minutes · Task 1 from 150 words, Task 2 from 250
Speaking
11–14 minutes · 3 parts

Reported asBand 0–9, half bands

What you get, section by section

Generated for your attempt, every attempt. Nothing here is a stored paper being handed round.

Reading

Three passages under one 60-minute clock, at the real pace of 90 seconds a question. Every wrong answer shows the sentence in the passage that proves the right one, and why each distractor is wrong.

Listening

The clock is paced by the recording, not by the question count — because a listening test is as long as its audio and nothing else. You get two minutes at the end to check, which is computer-delivered IELTS; there is no ten-minute transfer window, because there is no answer sheet to transfer to.

Writing Task 1 (Academic)

The figure is generated as data and drawn from it, so the peak, the crossover, the biggest change and the dominant share are arithmetic. Your answer is checked against each feature that is actually in the chart.

Writing Task 2

Marked on Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy — separately, each with evidence.

Speaking

All three parts. Part 2 gives you one minute to prepare and one to two minutes to talk, which is the published window, not a rounded-off approximation of it.

The Speaking clock, as IELTS publishes it

Taken from the published format and held to it. A clock that is generous by thirty seconds trains a habit that costs marks on the day.

TaskPrepareAnswer
Part 1 — Introduction and interview4–5 min
Part 2 — Individual long turn1 min1–2 min
Part 3 — Two-way discussion4–5 min

The band-6 overview rule is enforced, not quoted

IELTS caps Task Achievement at 5 when a Task 1 answer has no overview. Because the chart is data rather than a picture, we can ask a closed question about each key feature — was it reported, was it accurate — instead of an open one about coverage, which is exactly where a language model is generous. So the cap applies when it should, and you are told which feature you missed.

Free — $0

Enough to judge it

  • One section practice a day
  • Two writing and two speaking evaluations a month
  • The explanation and the proving line for every answer
  • Your last 7 days of practice
  • No card, no expiry, no ads
Paid — from $14.99/month

All six exams, unlimited

  • Unlimited practice and unlimited marking
  • Full-length timed papers
  • Which question type keeps costing you marks, across everything you have sat
  • Your complete record, kept

See the four plans

Questions, answered

Is the IELTS practice free?

Yes. The free plan gives you one section practice a day plus two writing and two speaking evaluations a month, with the explanation and the proving sentence for every answer. It needs an email address, no card, and it does not expire.

Are these real past IELTS papers?

No, deliberately. Every passage, recording and task is generated for your attempt. That means we reproduce nobody's copyrighted material, and it means no answer key exists for the paper you are about to sit — which is what makes a practice band worth anything.

Does it cover General Training as well as Academic?

Yes. General Training Reading is marked on its own harder scale — 30 correct is band 6 on General Training and band 7 on Academic — so the right table is applied to the right paper.

How accurate is the band?

It is an estimate and we say so on every result. It is built against the published band descriptors and shows you the criterion scores and the evidence, so you can check the reasoning rather than take a number on faith. No practice tool can give you an official IELTS score.

Also on Examling: IELTS band score calculator · TOEFL iBT practice test · PTE Academic practice test

Sit one today, free

No card and no trial clock. See what the marking tells you before you decide whether it is worth paying for.

Start free