Skip to content

Simone Braverman

Simone Braverman is the founder of IELTS-Blog.com and the author of several renowned IELTS preparation books, including Ace the IELTS, Target Band 7, the High Scorer's Choice practice test series, and IELTS Success Formula. Since 2005, Simone has been committed to making IELTS preparation accessible and effective through her books and online resources. Her work has helped 100,000's of students worldwide achieve their target scores and live their dream lives. When Simone isn't working on her next IELTS book, video lesson, or coaching, she enjoys playing the guitar or rollerblading.

IELTS exam in India – March 2009 (General Training)

This update came from India where our friend G recently took his General Training IELTS test. Thanks, G!

Note: one day later a person from London, UK told me they had the exact same questions.

Reading test

In Reading, there were 5 passages and about 10 questions were of True/False/Not Given kind.

Writing test

Writing Task 1 (letter)
You lost something and someone found it and sent it to you. Writing a letter to that person
1. Thanking the person
2. Explain how you must have lost it
3. Explain what was there in it and why it was important to you

Writing Task 2 (essay)
In some countries, the number of people opting to live alone is increasing every year. Is this a positive development or negative development. What is your opinion.

Speaking test

Interview
– Where are you from?
– What are you doing? Do you like your job?
– How do you keep fit?
– Do you listen to music, what kind of music?
– Do you think computers and mobile phone keep people close or away when compared to how things were in the past?
– Increase in use of SMS (through mobile phone), what do you think about it? Is it good or bad?

Cue Card
Tell me something about the person you like spending time with the most, you should say
– How did you know this person ?
– How much time do you spend together?
– What do you normally talk about?

Discussion
– How you help your workers at office and what kind of help you receive from others?
– What are your job responsibilities?
– Is your job helping you to learn more?
– What kind of business is your company into?

How the Overall IELTS Band Score is calculated

How To Calculate Your Overall IELTS Band Score

Last Updated: February 24, 2023

I am getting asked this question very often, which is why we created an IELTS Overall Score Calculator you can use.

For those who need to understand the process in detail – here is how the IELTS test centre calculates your overall band score:

Total score = (Listening score + Reading score + Writing score + Speaking score) / 4

For example, if you’ve received Listening 6, Reading 7, Writing 8, Speaking 7, your total score will be (6+7+8+7) / 4 = 7.

Your score can be either a whole band or a band and a half – for example 7 or 7.5. No other fractions are allowed, for example no 7.25 or 7.75.

So what do they do in such cases, when the total score is neither whole nor half band?

There is a rule: if it ends with .25, round up to the nearest half score, and if it ends with .75, round up to the nearest whole band score.

To demonstrate, if you’ve received Listening 6, Reading 7, Writing 8, Speaking 6, your overall score will be (6+7+8+6)/4 = 6.75 – the rule says round up – which means you get 7.

Another example: if your scores were Listening 6 Reading 7 Writing 8 Speaking 8, the overall score will be (6+7+8+8)/4 = 7.25 – the rule says round up to half score – which means you get 7.5.

However, if you’ve received Listening 6, Reading 6.5, Writing 6, Speaking 6, your overall score will be (6+6.5+6+6)/4 = 6.125 – the rule says round down to the nearest whole band score – which means you get 6.

Similarly, if you received Listening 6.5, Reading 6.5, Writing 6.5, Speaking 7, your overall score will be (6.5+6.5+6.5+7)/4 = 6.625 – the rule says round down to the nearest half band score – which means you get 6.5.

It’s not too difficult – just remember to apply the rule of rounding.