To learn English has more or less become a necessity for citizens of the world today. In 2008 the English Language grew ever more global with some 1,300,000,000 speakers using it as their first, second, business, or technical tongue. Not only has English become an international language; it is used by more and more people around the world as a medium of post-school study.

To help universities and colleges select students with sufficient English skills to succeed in their courses, The IELTS (The International English Language Testing System) test was introduced in 1989 to assess “whether candidates are ready to train in the medium of English”. It is now used for this purpose around the world and is recognized as a highly dependable, practical and valid English language assessment primarily used by those seeking international education, professional recognition and global mobility.

The Test Format

There are four modules to the IELTS test : Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. Students must sit all four modules. While all students take the same Listening and Speaking tests, they sit different Reading and Writing tests, depending on whether they have selected the Academic IELTS test or the General Training IELTS test.

On the day of the test, the four subsections will be taken in the following order:
IELTS listening test lasts for about 30 minutes. It consists of four sections, played on cassette tape, in order of increasing difficulty. Each section might be a dialogue or a monologue. The test is played once only, and the questions for each section must be answered while listening, although time is given for students to check their answers.

IELTS Reading test lasts for 60 minutes. Students are given an Academic Reading test, or a General Training Reading test. Both tests consist of three sections, and in both tests the sections are in order of increasing difficulty.

IELTS Writing test also lasts for 60 minutes. Again, students take either an Academic test, or a General Training test. Students must perform two writing tasks, which require different styles of writing. There is no choice of question topics.

IELTS Speaking test consists of a one-to-one interview with a specially trained examiner. The examiner will lead the candidate through the three parts of the test:

An introduction and interview, an individual long turn where the candidate speaks for one or two minutes on a particular topic, and a two-way discussion thematically linked to the individual long turn. This interview will last for approximately 11-14 minutes.

Submitted by Saint George International. www.stgeorges.co.uk
Saint George International has a range of IELTS Preparation courses that run throughout the year for those with a good Intermediate level or higher.

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