How IELTS Band Scores Are Calculated, Paper by Paper

How is the overall IELTS band calculated?

The overall band is the mean of your Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking bands, rounded to the nearest half band. Add the four bands, divide by four, then round. IELTS states the two cases people ask about: an average ending in .25 goes up to the next half band, and one ending in .75 goes up to the next whole band.

Because every paper band is a whole or half band, the average of four can only ever end in one of eight ways. That makes the rule easy to apply exactly:

These are the three worked examples IELTS publishes, and two more at the edges of the rule:

How many half bands do you need to move up?

Raising one paper by half a band moves your average by 0.125. That is why the same improvement can change your overall band for one candidate and do nothing for another: it depends where in the rounding your average sits now. Count the half-band steps you need, across any of the four papers:

Take the third example above: 6.5, 6.5, 5.5 and 6.0 average 6.125 and give 6.0 overall. A single extra half band in any paper, say Writing from 5.5 to 6.0, lifts the average to 6.25 and the overall band to 6.5. A candidate whose average is exactly 6.5 needs two half bands to reach 7.0.

How is the Listening band worked out?

Listening is marked out of 40, one mark for each correct answer, and the raw score is converted to a band. There are no half marks and nothing is deducted for a wrong answer. An answer only counts if it is spelt correctly and stays within the word limit printed with the question.

IELTS publishes the conversion as approximate, because each version of the test is graded so that a band means the same thing however hard that version was. The figures it gives are about 16 correct answers for Band 5, 23 for Band 6, 30 for Band 7 and 35 for Band 8.

The table explains a pattern teachers see all the time: Bands 6 and 7 sit seven marks apart, while Bands 8 and 9 are four marks apart. Near the top, every single answer counts.

How is the Reading band worked out?

Reading is marked the same way: 40 questions, one mark each, converted to a band. The difference is that Academic and General Training have their own conversion. Both are reported on the same 9-band scale, but the Academic passages are harder in vocabulary and style, so General Training needs more correct answers for the same band.

Those four rows are IELTS's own approximate figures. The full tables we use for marking and for the calculators:

How is the Writing band worked out?

An examiner scores each Writing task on four criteria, each as a whole band from 0 to 9: Task Achievement (Task 1) or Task Response (Task 2), Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. IELTS states that the four criteria are weighted equally, that each task's score is their average, and that Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to the Writing score.

IELTS does not publish how the averages are rounded. The method most teachers use, and the one our Writing marking and calculator use, is:

1. Average each task's four criteria

   Task 1 scored 6, 6, 7 and 6 averages 6.25. Task 2 scored 7, 6, 7 and 6 averages 6.5.

2. Round each task down to a half band

   Task 1 becomes 6.0. Task 2 stays at 6.5.

3. Count Task 2 twice

   (6.0 + 6.5 + 6.5) ÷ 3 = 6.33, which rounds down to a Writing band of 6.0.

Two things follow from this. Task 2 decides most of your Writing band, so a weak Task 2 cannot be rescued by a strong Task 1. And the rounding is unforgiving: in the example, the 7 for vocabulary in both tasks did not show in the final band at all, because the other criteria held each average down.

For what each criterion asks for, band by band, see the Writing band descriptors in plain English.

How is the Speaking band worked out?

The Speaking examiner gives four whole bands, one each for Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation. IELTS states that the four carry equal weight and that their average gives your Speaking band.

Again, IELTS does not publish how that average is rounded. The widely used rule, and the one our Speaking Simulator applies, is to round down to the nearest half band:

Notice the second and third rows: three criteria at 7 still give 6.5. To be reported as a Band 7 speaker you need all four criteria at 7, or a higher score somewhere to make up for a 6. What each criterion means at each band covers what moves a criterion.

What does each band mean?

IELTS gives every band a skill level, the same in all four papers and for the overall result. These are the names it uses:

Check yourself

Work out each overall band in your head before you choose. The rounding catches people out most at .125 and .75.

How to use this when you practise

A band calculation is only useful if the bands that go into it are realistic. Three habits keep them honest:

• Score practice tests the way the real one is scored. In Listening and Reading, count a misspelling or an answer over the word limit as wrong, because the real test will.
• Use full papers, not only sections. A single Reading passage tells you little about a sixty-minute paper, where pacing costs as many marks as difficulty.
• Track each paper separately. The overall band hides where the half band is coming from. A candidate stuck at 6.0 overall is usually one paper away from 6.5, and the table above shows exactly how far.

Every SpeakMetry mock test is marked with the tables and rules on this page, so the band you get from a practice sitting is worked out the same way as the one in your report.

You can sit a Listening, Reading or Writing test, or the Speaking Simulator, and the band score calculator works out an overall band from four scores you already have.