IELTS Speaking: A Guide

1Introduction and interview (4–5 minutes)

Questions about familiar subjects: your home, work or studies, and two or three everyday topics such as food, music, weather or transport.

ExaminerDo you like reading?

PhiloVery much. I work in a library, so I’m surrounded by books all day, but I still read in the evenings — mostly history, and the occasional detective story.

2The long turn (3–4 minutes)

The examiner gives you a task card with a topic and three or four prompts. You have one minute to prepare, with paper and pencil, and then speak for one to two minutes without interruption. The examiner may ask one or two short questions at the end.

Task card

Describe a place you like to visit. You should say: where it is · how often you go there · what you do there · and explain why you like it.

Sophia I’d like to talk about the lighthouse on Pharos, which is at the entrance to the harbour here in Alexandria. I try to go there at least once a month, usually early on a Sunday morning, before the crowds arrive. Mostly I just walk around the base and look out to sea — you can watch the ships coming in from all over the Mediterranean. I suppose the reason I love it is that it’s the one place where I feel the whole world is passing through my city. And on a clear evening, when they light the fire at the top, it’s simply breathtaking.

3Discussion (4–5 minutes)

The examiner asks more abstract questions linked to the Part 2 topic: Why do people like visiting famous places? Is tourism always good for a city? Give developed answers, with reasons and examples.

ExaminerIs tourism always good for a city?

SophiaNot always, I’d say. It obviously brings money and jobs, but if a place becomes too crowded, it can lose the very character that attracted visitors in the first place. So I think the key is balance — limiting numbers at the most fragile sites, for instance.

Common topics

Part 1

Home and hometown
Work or studies
Hobbies, music, sport
Food, shopping, weather
Transport, holidays, friends

Parts 2 and 3

A person you admire
A place, a journey, an event
An object you value
A skill you learned
A decision, a change, a piece of advice

Tips for Speaking

In Part 1, give an answer plus a reason or detail: two or three sentences.
In Part 2, use your minute to note key words for each prompt, then keep talking until the examiner stops you.
In Part 3, the examiner wants ideas and opinions, not personal stories: generalise and give examples.
It’s fine to say That’s an interesting question, let me think… — but don’t memorise answers.

•How Speaking is scored

The examiner gives a band for four criteria, which are averaged:

Fluency and Coherence

Speaking at length without too much hesitation, with ideas clearly linked.

Lexical Resource

Range and precision of vocabulary, including less common words and idioms.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

A mix of simple and complex structures, with control.

Pronunciation

How easy you are to understand: sounds, stress, rhythm and intonation.

Speaking: what separates the bands

What separates the bands, in plain English

Band 5

Can keep going, but with repetition, self-correction and slow speech; simple language only.

Band 6

Willing to speak at length, with some loss of coherence; mix of simple and complex forms with errors.

Band 7

Speaks at length without noticeable effort; flexible vocabulary, some idiom; frequent error-free sentences.

Band 8

Fluent, with only occasional hesitation; wide vocabulary used precisely; easy to understand throughout.

Based on the published IELTS test format. Score conversions are approximate and vary slightly from test to test. Always check ielts.org for the latest information.