Free IELTS practice tests, timed and band scored

A practice test is only worth taking if it behaves like the exam. That means the clock runs the way it runs on the day, the question types are the ones the paper actually uses, and the result comes back as a band rather than a percentage. Everything below is built that way, and the numbers further down come from 8,597 scored attempts on this site rather than from what usually gets repeated about IELTS.

Start with the paper you need

If your exam is more than a month away, start with single section papers and find out where you actually lose marks. If it is close, take a full test in one sitting, because stamina is part of what the exam measures and no amount of section practice rehearses it.

What 8,597 scored practice tests show

These are results from this site, measured on 2026-09-25. Of 9,067 attempts on file, 8,597 produced a band above zero and are counted here. The rest were opened and abandoned, and including them would say more about browsing habits than about English.

The median overall band is 5.0 and the mean is 4.96. Just under half of attempts, 49.2%, reach band 5.5 or better. 14.6% reach 6.5, the bar most universities set, and 5.9% reach 7.

Reading is the skill that drags the overall band down

Across 3,447 complete full tests, where all four skills were scored for the same person, we counted which skill came out lowest. Reading was lowest most often, in 984 attempts. Listening was lowest least often, in 315.

Shares add to more than 100% because an attempt with two skills tied at the bottom is counted in both. The practical reading of this table is that the paper most people under-practise is the one that costs them the most. Reading is a speed problem more than a vocabulary problem: 40 questions in 60 minutes with no extra time to transfer answers leaves roughly 90 seconds a question, and most candidates who score below 6 run out of time in the third passage rather than misunderstanding the first.

Which question types you will actually meet

Most advice treats every question type as equally likely. They are not. Counting every question in the 8 Listening and 8 Reading papers here, which is 640 questions in all, gives the distribution below. It matches the mix the real papers use, and it tells you where practice time pays back.

Two things follow from that table. In Listening, completion questions of one kind or another are 64% of everything you will be asked, and those are marked on exact spelling and singular or plural. A correct answer written as “book” when the recording said “books” scores zero, so practising spelling under time pressure is not a side issue. In Reading, True, False and Not Given is the largest single type at 23%, and the distinction that costs marks is between False, which means the passage contradicts the statement, and Not Given, which means the passage simply does not address it. Guessing between those two is the single cheapest band to recover in Reading.

The Writing papers cover the task types the same way: across 16 papers there are 48 distinct Task 1 and Task 2 briefs, including formal letter, informal letter, semi formal letter, opinion essay and more. If you only ever practise bar charts and opinion essays, half of what the exam can hand you is unrehearsed.

How to take a practice test so it is worth something

The attempt is the cheap part. What changes a band is what you do with the paper afterwards, and the order below is what separates a practice test from an afternoon of reading English.

1. Run the clock properly. Set the timer for the full section, do not pause it, and stop when it stops. A test you gave yourself an extra ten minutes on produces a band that will not appear on exam day.
2. Do the whole paper in one sitting. Listening and Reading back to back is 90 minutes of concentration, and fatigue is the reason many people lose marks in the last passage rather than difficulty.
3. Mark it, then classify every mistake. Ran out of time, misread the question, did not know the word, or spelling. Those four categories need four different fixes, and only one of them is vocabulary.
4. Redo the questions you got wrong, untimed. If you get them right with no clock, your problem is speed. If you still get them wrong, it is technique, and the question type is the thing to study next.
5. Leave a gap before the next full test. A week is usually right. Back to back full tests measure the same weaknesses twice instead of giving you time to fix any of them.

If your exam is next week

Seven days is not enough to move a band through study, but it is enough to stop losing marks to things that are not English. This is the order that works, and it uses the papers on this site.

• Day 1. A full test in one sitting, at the time of day your exam is booked for. That is your real starting band and it sets everything below.
• Day 2. Review only. Classify every wrong answer into timing, misread, vocabulary or spelling. Count which category is biggest.
• Days 3 and 4. Two section papers on your lowest skill, timed. If that is Reading, which it is for most people here, practise finishing passage three rather than starting passage one more carefully.
• Day 5. One Writing paper under the clock, 20 minutes for Task 1 and 40 for Task 2, and one Speaking paper recorded out loud. Read the criteria feedback rather than only the band.
• Day 6. A second full test. Compare it with Day 1 by skill, not by overall band.
• Day 7. Nothing timed. Reread your own mistakes and sleep properly. Candidates who take a full test the day before tend to walk in tired, and tiredness costs more marks than one more paper wins.

Practice test, mock test and the real exam

The words get used loosely, and the difference matters when you are deciding what to take next. A practice test is usually one section, done for technique, and it can be stopped and restarted. A mock test is the whole thing under exam conditions, 165 minutes, in the right order, and it is the only one that tells you what band you would get today. The real exam adds identity checks, a room full of other people, and a Speaking session that may sit on a different day from the other three papers.

One gap no practice test closes on its own: in the real Speaking test you are talking to an examiner who follows up on your answers. Practising Speaking alone builds fluency and gets your Part 2 timing right, but arrange at least one conversation with another person before the exam.

How the bands on this site are worked out

Listening and Reading are objective. Each correct answer is worth one mark out of 40, and the raw score converts to a band on the published conversion, so those bands are exact rather than an estimate. You can check any raw score against the conversion with the band score calculator.

Writing and Speaking are judged against the four official criteria, the same four an examiner uses, and each one comes back with its own band and a written reason. Treat those two as a well-informed second opinion rather than an exact prediction: two human examiners can differ by half a band on the same script, which is exactly why the official remark service exists. If you are converting a result for immigration, the IELTS to CLB converter shows what your four bands are worth in Canada.

Questions people ask before starting