IELTS Band Score Calculation
Leave a reply
Band sore calculation is a tricky but an effective process of measuring your language skills. The evaluation process is done by professionally qualified examiners appointed by Cambridge Evaluation Department.
In IELTS there is no pass or fail. Each of your individual test scores on listening, speaking, reading and writing is converted into a hierarchy: starting from 1 (the least language ability) and 9 (a masterly level of language expertise in all four skills). See the below chart:
The Final Report Form that you receive after 13 working days, will have two types of band scores mentioned: 1. Overall band score and 2. Sub-skill band scores-the average of all your four tests on listening speaking reading and writing. See the sample Final Report Form below:
The most important thing you should know is that depending on your purpose (study or work) and the organization you apply, the band score requirement will differ. You should be aware of the requirements of the particular company you are willing to work or the university that you are planning to proceed with your higher studies overseas.
Generally jobs or courses which require high level of linguistic competencies (quality communication in English) need a higher level of band scores like 7.0, 7.5 above. These fields include: education, medicine, law, admiration, journalism etc. On the other hand jobs or courses which require low level of linguistic competencies (average use of English in day to day communication) may require between 5.5 and 6.5. These fields include: industrial, engineering, automobile, catering etc.
It is always advisable that you start your IETLS practices with a proper planning and a specific aim. You should inquire beforehand about the demanding band overall score and sub score levels from the particular university or college or the company you are seeking to get in.
Now let us see how band sores are calculated for each sub-skill teats.
When it comes to marking sub-skill tests like listening and reading; General and Academic candidates have difference band sore scaling systems. For the above two tests, band sore is calculated according to the raw mark you get out of 40 in each. It checks your receptive skills. The 40 marks are scaled into the following rages. Look at the tables given below:
ACADEMIC LISTENING AND READING
GENERAL LISTENING AND READING
The other two tests– speaking and writing which tests your productive skills are marked under the following criteria equally.
Speaking
Fluency and coherence 25%
(It refers to the way organize your speech and how you connect ideas together in a meaningful way using cohesive devices such as, and, but, because, neither…nor, either…or, not only… but also, on the other hand etc. The natural flow of your speech. Are you doing a lot of repetition? Your hesitation level unless it is natural, Are you correcting your grammar often? Are yiou using natural filler such as err.., umm…, well etc.)
Vocabulary 25%
(How much words you use in connection with the topic. The words should be thematically relevant to the topic and natural in idiomatic user. For example: regular/irregular working hours, sign in/out, routine, overtime, full time /part time, hectic, buried under , run after time etc.- when you describe your job)
Grammar 25%
(This checks the natural use of simple, compound and complex sentences in your speech. The switching from one tense to another is also counted.)
Pronunciation 25%
(Your effortless projection of voice, how you stress important words, the natural up and down of your voice and the way you pronounce basic words correctly in an accepted manner.)
Writing
Task achievement /task response 25%
(Task achievement for writing task 1 and task response for writing task 2. this includes the amount of sufficient analysis or supported ideas in your writing. In this case the minimum number of words is also counted)
Coherence and cohesion 25%
(The checks the overall structuring and linking ideas appropriately in a natural way to show the completeness of your write-up- this mainly includes the use of connective devices such as ; in addition, moreover, in contrast , to sum up etc.)
Lexical resources 25%
(Lexis means words. This criteria refers to the amount of appropriate words you use in the writing task. The words you choose should be relevant to the content naturally. You should use a wide range of sophisticated words in your writing in order to show your word power)
Grammatical range and accuracy 25%
The criteria emphasis the correctness and the range of sentence structures you use in the writing task. In other words it’s the control you have over your English. To what extend you can transform sentences from simple to complex or complex to compound and so on. How you switch from one tense to another will be counted)
So why should I get half (6.5) or full (7.0) and not (6.25) or (7.89)?
It’s because of the standard indicators designed by the IELTS governing body in order to show your level of English knowledge to the whole world.
It is a standard custom of IELTS governing body to present your performance in full or half scores. If you happen to get a scores like 6.25 or 7.89, those scores are rounded up to the next half or full number. In this case it is 6.5 or 8.0 respectively. The same principal is applied to both overall band score calculation as well as sub-test score calculation. Let me give you another example:
Imagine you get the following scores in each test:
Speaking 6.5
Listening 7.0
Reading .60
Writing 6.5
In order to get calculate your overall band score let us add all these numbers together:
6.5+6.5+6.0+6.5 and you are getting a total of 25.5. Now let us divide it by 4. You are getting a score of 6.375. Now in such a situation your score is rounded up to the next half level- which is 6.5.
The same method is handled in terms of rounding up to the full score.
Hope you guys are satisfied with the explanation given. If you want to add anything please include them in the comment section below. Please do not hesitate to discuss you IELTS related problems in the Discussion Room. Thank you!
Top 10 Websites for IELTS
The internet is full of IELTS materials. Except a few, all the others are considered to be average in standard. You don’t need to waste time searching for authentic standard materials. Here are a list of top 10 websites which provide free but extremely powerful materials for IELTS practices. These websites cover all the four skills and give you a plenty of training to perform well at the exam.
01. IELTS Official
This is the primary official website of IELTS. You can also subscribe to their official YouTube Channel: IELTS/official, which provides a plenty of useful videos hosted by qualified British council IETLS instructors.
This website also provides all the necessary background information to IELTS such as registration, test venues and dates, IELTS approved list of countries along with organizations, online test results, etc.
There are separate menus for candidates, teachers, researchers and organizations. You can also find country-wise IELTS requirements for UK, Australia, USA and Canada.
The FAQ section answers all your personal IELTS related questions and you are free to download exam application form, instructional manuals for candidates and teachers and free practice materials.
02. IELTS British Council
This is one of the secondary official websites which provides almost the same kind of information provided by the primary one. As British council is one of the partners of IELTS, from online registration to final result viewing everything is provided.
If you are a busy person then you can simply book your test online and prepare from home by registering one their online courses conducted by British Council instructors.
03. GoodluckIELTS
It is one the best private websites that exists today. It caters to your needs with plenty of free materials on all the four skills. the website contains many practice materials for general candidates.
04. engVid
If you are person who likes to learn by watching videos, then here is the site for you with an elegant layout and more than 1000 videos by qualified native English teachers on wide range of elements of the English language. you will be finding a plenty of tips in the form of videos teachers explaining on whiteboards.
05. ielts-simon.com
Simon is one of the renowned IELTS instructors. He is also an ex- examiner. He adds short lessons every day covering all the four skills. the key feature of his website is his way of interacting with his students. he is popular for his commentaries on his students writings.
06. IETLS Ryan Higgins
Ryan has been an IELTS instructor for a long time. He has taught in many countries around the world. He is so famous for his essay writing videos on YouTube. His step by step approach to essay writing and question analysis is quite noteworthy.
07. IETLS-Blog
It is one of the leading private blogs on IELTS. It won the Best Australian Blog Award in 2014. The specialty of this blog is that it was launched by Simone Braverman who is a non-native speaker of English. His way of analysis on problems encountered by second language IELTS test takers is greatly commendable.
08. DC IELTS
This website contains a library of information on IELTS. The owner ,Dominic, is a veteran in the field of IETLS . It is one of the best sources on the web. Thematic vocabulary needed for IELTS writing is masterly presented on this site. It covers a wide range of aspects of the IELTS exam. Candidates could feel fortunate to find such rich sources of information all for free of charge.
This is my personal favorite!.Do you want to improve your overall English for general purposes? If that is so, this is the right place for the average learner to have access to natural English with native speakers in variety of contexts with numerous audio and video materials. As an IELTS test taker this website will be immensely useful for you to improve your extensive reading and listening. You will also learn new vocabulary items for your essay writing.There are three sections: Six Minute English, LingoHack and Six Minute Grammar: Please make use of all of them.
10. UEusingEnglish.com
Do you want to improve your grammar for IELTS? Here is the place for you to test yourself with a selection of 516 free English language quizzes covering grammar, usage and vocabulary for beginner, intermediate and advanced level English students. Simply answer all of the questions in the quiz and press submit to see your score and other statistics.
Introduction to IELTS ACADEMIC WRITING MODULE
IELTS Academic Writing is a one hour test which consists of two tasks. Task one and Task two.
In Task one you are asked to write a 150 word report based on a chart, graph, table or diagram. Even though the word limit is 150 words, it refers to the minimum word limit, which means you should always write above this limit. Writing between 160 and 180 words is usually sufficient enough. You will not be penalized for writing more. But writing more may lead to over-consumption of time and language slips in the content. Remember you should use only 20 minutes for this task. Exceeding this limit may kill the time of task two.
In Task two you are given a topic to write a discursive essay. A discursive essay is an essay where you have to discuss, argue or give a solution to a problem. The topics are generally based on current issues related to politics, society, environment, technology etc. for this task are to allocate 40 minutes and you should write minimum 250 words. That means your essay should be within the word limit of 260-280.
Why should I write more than the required word limit?
Writing more is always beneficial and why is that? In case you copied long phrases or sentences from the question itself the marking examiner would not count those words. So, there is a high probability that you might lose marks under one of the marking criteria.
So how are scores given?
For Task one marks are given under four criteria:
- Task achievement 25%
- Coherence and cohesion 25%
- Grammatical range and accuracy 25%
- Lexical resources 25%
For Task two marks are given under a similar criteria:
- Task response 25%
- Coherence and cohesion 25%
- Grammatical range and accuracy 25%
- Lexical resources 25%
These raw marks for each task will be added together and divided in order to scale your band sore out of 9. Thus you get the sub score for this particular component of the IELTS exam.
Any personal query regarding this part of the exam can be discussed in the discussion room.
Introduction to IELTS ACADEMIC READING MODULE
The Academic Reading Test spreads over 3 sections containing 40 questions in total. You are given a total of 60 minutes to answer these questions.
Unlike IELTS listening, you are not provided with additional time to transfer your answers to a separate answer sheet. That means your answering will be an on-going process.
Once you have found an answer to a particular question it’s always advisable to transfer immediately so as to save time and to avoid mistakes. Some candidates prefer to do this in the last five or ten minutes but most of them hardly ever succeed. They are also prone to make a plenty of mistakes in terms of spelling, grammar and capitalization. So beware of the mistakes as you will always be penalized for doing so.
So, how are each section organized?
All the three sections are organized similar to one another in terms of comprehension passages. But the question types may vary. Each section has a 900-950 words long text followed by 13-15 questions.
What type of questions will I get?
Well, you will be getting a variety of question types such as , matching headings with paragraphs, matching information with paragraphs, multiple choice questions, yes/no/not given questions, true/false/not given questions, fill in the blanks, labelling a diagram etc.
What’s the difference between IELTS Academic Reading Test and IELTS General Reading Test?
Even though the academic and general speaking and listening tests are graded in the same manner, the reading and the writing tests are graded differently. This is because of the difference that generally relies on the type of texts that candidates get and the way the marks are scaled. Check out the band score scaling for Academic and General Reading Tests.
IELTS academic candidates will be getting more advance texts related to academic topics designed for non-specialist audience. Which means the reading passages are usually taken form authentic sources like newspapers, magazines, books, website articles etc.
For your information, IELTS general reading test takers need to score more out of 40 questions in order to receive a higher band score. This is due to the questions which are generally based on short, day-to-day authentic materials such as, journals, advertisements, periodicals, magazines, official documents, and newspapers etc. which are commonly considered to be easier in vocabulary and complexity than that of academic reading passages.
Any queries on the Academic Reading Module can be dealt with in the Discussion room.
IELTS tactics 