It is very important that you know what skills are assessed in IELTS - this will determine your preparation. Also, it is very useful to know how your test will be marked. Read carefully:
Listening
Skills assessed: a wide range of listening skills is assessed, including understanding of main ideas and specific factual information; recognising opinions, attitudes and purpose of a speaker; and following the development of an argument.
Marking: Each correct answer receives 1 mark. Scores out of 40 are converted to the IELTS 9 band scale. Scores are reported in whole and half bands.
Reading
Skills assessed: a wide range of reading skills is assessed, including reading for gist, reading for main ideas, reading for detail; understanding inferences and implied meaning; recognising a writer’s opinions, attitudes and purpose; and following the development of an argument.
Marking: each correct answer receives 1 mark. Scores out of 40 are converted to the IELTS 9-band scale. Scores reported in whole and half bands.
Writing
Skills assessed: in both tasks, candidates are assessed on their ability to write a response which is appropriate in terms of content, the organisation of ideas, and the accuracy and range of vocabulary and grammar.
Academic Writing
In task 1, depending on the task type, candidates are assessed on their ability to organise, present and possibly compare data; to describe the stages of a process or procedure; to describe an object or event or sequence of events; to explain how something works.
In task 2, depending on the task type, candidates are assessed on their ability to present a solution to a problem; to present and justify an opinion; to compare and contrast evidence, opinions and implications; to evaluate and challenge ideas, evidence or an argument.
General Training Writing
In task 1, depending on the task type, candidates are assessed on their ability to engage in personal correspondence in order to: elicit and provide general factual information; express needs, wants, likes and dislikes; express opinions (views, complaints, etc.)
In task 2, candidates are assessed on their ability to provide general factual information; to outline a problem and present a solution; to present ideas, evidence or an argument.
Marking: candidates are assessed on their performance on each task by certificated IELTS examiners according to the four criteria of the IELTS Writing Test Band Descriptors (task achievement/response, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy).
Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to the Writing score. Scores are reported in whole and half bands.
Speaking
Skills assessed: a wide range of speaking skills is assessed, including the ability to communicate opinions and information on everyday topics and common experiences and situations by answering a range of questions; the ability to speak at length on a given topic using appropriate language and organising ideas coherently; and the ability to express and justify opinions and to analyse, discuss and speculate about issues.
Marking: Candidates are assessed on their performance throughout the test by certificated IELTS examiners according to the four criteria of the IELTS Speaking Test Band Descriptors (fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, pronunciation).
Scores are reported in whole and half bands.
Source: IELTS information for Candidates booklet 2011
Source: IELTS information for Candidates booklet 2011
Download the public version of the band descriptors here:
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete