What happens in each part of the IELTS Speaking test, and what is marked?
The short answer
The Speaking test is an eleven to fourteen minute face-to-face interview in three parts: Part 1, four to five minutes of short questions about you (home, work, study, daily life); Part 2, a cue card with a topic and prompts, one minute to prepare and up to two minutes to talk; Part 3, four to five minutes of abstract discussion questions linked to the Part 2 topic. It is marked on four equal criteria: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy and Pronunciation. The examiner is not marking your opinions or your accent; they are marking whether you can keep going, organise what you say, choose words precisely and be understood without effort. Memorised answers are recognised and are scored as if the question had not been answered.
What happens in each part?
| Part | Length | What the examiner does | What a good answer looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1: Introduction and interview | 4 to 5 minutes | Checks your identity, then asks three or four short questions on each of two or three familiar topics: where you live, your work or studies, hobbies, food, weather, daily routine. | Two to three sentences per answer. A direct reply, a reason, and a detail or example. Not one word; not a speech. |
| 2: Individual long turn | 3 to 4 minutes | Hands you a cue card with a topic and three or four bullet prompts, gives you one minute and paper to make notes, then lets you speak for one to two minutes and asks one rounding-off question. | Speak for the full two minutes, cover the bullets, tell it as a story with a beginning, detail and a reflection at the end. |
| 3: Two-way discussion | 4 to 5 minutes | Asks abstract questions related to the Part 2 topic: why people do this, how it has changed, whether it is good for society, what will happen in future. | Longer, structured answers with an opinion, a reason, an example and a concession. This is where band 7 and above is decided. |
How is Speaking marked?
| Criterion | Band 6 | Band 7 |
|---|---|---|
| Fluency and Coherence | Willing to speak at length but loses coherence at times through repetition, self-correction or hesitation; a range of connectives, not always appropriate. | Speaks at length without noticeable effort; some hesitation is language-related but does not break flow; a range of connectives and discourse markers used flexibly. |
| Lexical Resource | Wide enough vocabulary to discuss topics at length; some inappropriacy; paraphrases with some success. | Vocabulary flexible enough to discuss a variety of topics; some less common and idiomatic items with some awareness of style; paraphrases effectively. |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | A mix of simple and complex structures with limited flexibility; errors frequent in complex structures but rarely impede understanding. | A range of complex structures with some flexibility; frequent error-free sentences; some errors persist. |
| Pronunciation | Mostly understood; some mispronounced words and features of the language used with mixed control. | Shows all the positive features of band 6 and some of band 8: easy to understand throughout, with effective use of stress, rhythm and intonation, though the accent affects some words. |
Accent is not marked; intelligibility is
A Pakistani accent costs nothing. What costs is word stress on the wrong syllable, every sentence delivered at one flat pitch, and consonant clusters swallowed at word ends. Those are features of pronunciation, they are in the descriptor, and they respond to practice.
Part 1: how long should answers be?
| Question | Band 6 answer | Band 7 answer |
|---|---|---|
| Do you prefer to study in the morning or the evening? | In the morning. Because my mind is fresh in the morning and I can concentrate. | Mornings, definitely. My mind is clearer before the house wakes up, so I get through more in an hour then than in three in the evening, when my brothers are home and there is always something going on. |
- Answer, reason, detail. Three moves, two or three sentences, then stop. The examiner has a list to get through and will move on.
- Do not prepare speeches. Part 1 topics are familiar on purpose. A rehearsed paragraph about your hometown is obvious in ten seconds.
- Use natural spoken language. "Definitely", "to be honest", "it depends" are appropriate here and count as discourse markers.
Part 2: how do you fill two minutes?
Use the minute for notes, not sentences
One or two words per bullet, plus a detail you can expand: a name, a place, a date, how it felt. Do not write an opening sentence; you will read it aloud and sound like it.
Open by answering the topic in one sentence
"The person I'm going to talk about is my grandfather, who taught me to swim." Then the story.
Follow the bullets in order, as a narrative
They are usually arranged as who or what, when and where, what happened, and how you feel about it. That is already a story shape.
Add detail, not more points
If you run dry, describe: what it looked like, what someone said, what surprised you. Detail fills time and earns Lexical Resource. Extra bullet points do not.
End with a reflection
"Looking back, that's probably where I learned to be patient." It gives the turn a close and gives the examiner a link to Part 3.
Do not stop early
Speaking for under a minute is the most common Part 2 failure. The examiner will not prompt you. If the topic is one you have nothing on, choose the nearest true thing and describe it; a truthful account of an ordinary afternoon beats a fluent fiction that runs out.
Part 3: how do you answer abstract questions?
Part 3 is where the examiner tests the top of your range. Questions are general and often comparative: "Why do you think some people prefer to live in cities?" "Has this changed in the last twenty years?" "Should governments do anything about it?"
- Opinion, reason, example, concession. "I'd say mostly for work. Jobs in Pakistan are concentrated in a few cities, so a graduate from a small town in Punjab often has no choice. Having said that, some people simply like the pace." Four moves, and every move is a criterion.
- Generalise, then specify. Part 3 is about people and society, not you. Use "people tend to", "in most families", then ground it with one concrete case.
- Show range on purpose: a conditional ("if cities were better planned"), a comparative ("far more than a generation ago"), a passive ("it is often assumed that").
- Buy time honestly: "That's a difficult one", "I hadn't thought about that, but I suppose". Filler in English is scored as fluency; silence is not.
- Do not agree with every question. "Partly, but" is a band 7 opening; "yes, I agree" followed by the question repeated is a band 5 one.
How do you prepare in four weeks?
Record yourself answering Part 1 questions daily, ten minutes
Listen back for one-word answers and for flat intonation. Both are fixable in a week once you hear them.
Do one timed cue card a day
One minute of notes, two minutes of talking, timed on your phone. Aim for the full two minutes every time.
Practise Part 3 with a partner who asks follow-ups
"Why?" and "can you give an example?" after every answer. This trains the opinion-reason-example-concession shape.
Work on stress and rhythm, not accent
Take twenty common multi-syllable words you use (economy, development, comfortable, photograph) and check the stressed syllable. Then read a paragraph aloud emphasising content words and gliding over grammar words.
Learn twenty topic-neutral phrases, not two hundred topic ones
Ways to give an opinion, contrast, concede, generalise, and buy time. They work on any topic; memorised topic vocabulary does not survive an unexpected question.
Writing and Speaking share two criteria almost word for word; how Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range are read on paper, with examples at each band, is in IELTS band descriptors explained.