IELTS doesn't give you a percentage. You get a band from 0 to 9 for each of the four skills, plus an overall band. Half bands are normal, so 6.5 or 7.5 is a perfectly ordinary result.
Once you know how those numbers are made, you can set a sensible target and see which skill will move your overall band the most. Here is how it works.
The four skills
Every IELTS test has the same four parts:
- Listening: four recorded parts, 40 questions.
- Reading: three long texts, 40 questions.
- Writing: two tasks, marked by an examiner.
- Speaking: a face-to-face interview in three parts, marked by the examiner.
Listening and Reading are marked right or wrong, one mark per question. Writing and Speaking are judged against public band descriptors. Listening and Speaking are the same for everyone. Reading and Writing come in two versions, Academic and General Training, depending on which test you take.
Listening and Reading: from raw score to band
In Listening and Reading you get a raw score out of 40, one mark per correct answer. A conversion table then turns that raw score into a band.
These are the ranges used across the most common bands. Each band starts at a minimum number of correct answers.
Listening (Academic and General Training)
- 39–40 correct: band 9
- 37–38: band 8.5
- 35–36: band 8
- 32–34: band 7.5
- 30–31: band 7
- 26–29: band 6.5
- 23–25: band 6
- 18–22: band 5.5
- 15–17: band 5
- 12–14: band 4.5
Academic Reading
- 39–40 correct: band 9
- 37–38: band 8.5
- 35–36: band 8
- 33–34: band 7.5
- 30–32: band 7
- 27–29: band 6.5
- 23–26: band 6
- 19–22: band 5.5
- 15–18: band 5
- 13–14: band 4.5
General Training Reading
- 40 correct: band 9
- 39: band 8.5
- 37–38: band 8
- 36: band 7.5
- 34–35: band 7
- 32–33: band 6.5
- 30–31: band 6
- 27–29: band 5.5
- 23–26: band 5
- 19–22: band 4.5
Notice that General Training Reading needs more correct answers for the same band. The General Training texts are less demanding, so the bar is higher. For example, 30 correct answers is band 7 in Academic Reading but band 6 in General Training.
One mark can change your band. In Listening, 29 correct is band 6.5 and 30 correct is band 7. That is why careless slips such as spelling mistakes and missing plurals matter so much.
One honest caveat: these tables are a standard guide. Each real test version is adjusted slightly for difficulty, so the exact cut-off can move by a mark or so from one test to another.
Writing and Speaking
Writing and Speaking have no raw score. The examiner judges your work against four criteria, each with its own band:
- Writing: Task Achievement (Task 1) or Task Response (Task 2), Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
- Speaking: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation.
The four criteria count equally. In the Writing test, Task 2 carries more weight than Task 1, so a strong essay matters more than a strong chart description.
On this site, Writing and Speaking are marked by AI against the same public band descriptors, and you see the reasons behind each score. We have not yet compared the AI's bands with a human examiner's, so treat them as a practice estimate, not a prediction of your real result.
How the overall band is calculated
Your overall band is the average of your four skill bands, rounded to the nearest half band. The part that confuses people is what happens when the average lands exactly between two half bands.
The rule: an average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band, and one ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band. Anything else goes to whichever half band is nearest.
Here are four worked examples.
Example 1. Listening 7.0, Reading 6.5, Writing 6.0, Speaking 5.5. The total is 25, and 25 ÷ 4 = 6.25. That rounds up to an overall 6.5.
Example 2. Listening 6.0, Reading 6.0, Writing 6.0, Speaking 6.5. The total is 24.5, and 24.5 ÷ 4 = 6.125. That is nearer to 6.0 than to 6.5, so the overall band is 6.0.
Example 3. Listening 6.5, Reading 6.5, Writing 7.0, Speaking 7.0. The total is 27, and 27 ÷ 4 = 6.75. That rounds up to an overall 7.0.
Example 4. Listening 6.5, Reading 7.0, Writing 6.5, Speaking 6.5. The total is 26.5, and 26.5 ÷ 4 = 6.625. That is nearer to 6.5, so the overall band is 6.5.
Look at Example 2 again. Moving just one of those 6.0s up to 6.5 makes the average 6.25, and the overall band becomes 6.5. Half a band in a single skill can lift your overall score.
The same rounding rule is used everywhere on this site: in the band calculator, on your Full Mock results and in your estimated band on the dashboard.
What this means for your preparation
- Know your target in every skill. Many universities and visa rules ask for a minimum in each skill as well as an overall band. A 7.0 overall with a 5.5 in Writing may not be enough.
- Protect your Listening and Reading marks. These are the skills where a single extra correct answer can move you up half a band, and most lost marks are avoidable slips rather than things you didn't understand.
- Find your cheapest half band. Work out which skill is closest to its next band, because that is often the quickest way to lift your overall score.
Try it yourself
Put in your own raw scores and skill bands with the band calculator. It shows the full conversion tables and exactly how your overall band is rounded.
Asian IELTS is independent and is not affiliated with IELTS, the British Council, IDP or Cambridge. Bands on this site are practice estimates, not official results.