What do the IELTS Speaking band descriptors mean?

What's in the Speaking band descriptors

IELTS publishes one table for the Speaking test. It has a row for each band from 0 to 9 and a column for each of the four criteria. Each box says in a few lines what speaking at that band sounds like.

The examiner listens to your whole test and gives you a band for each criterion. Two rules at the bottom of the table matter a lot. First, you only get a band if you fit all of its positive features. Second, the examiner judges your average level across all three parts, not your best answer.

So one good sentence won't lift you to band 7. You need to sound like a band 7 speaker most of the time.

How your Speaking band is worked out

Each criterion counts the same. Your four criterion bands are added up and divided by four, and that average is your Speaking band.

Here is a made-up result. The four bands add up to 26, and the average is 6.5.

IELTS publishes a rounding rule for the overall band across the four skills, but we couldn't find an official rule for a Speaking average that lands between half bands, such as 6.75. So don't count on it rounding up.

The example matters if you need IELTS for an Australian visa. Proficient English asks for 7.0 in each skill, and Superior English asks for 8.0. With 6.5 in Speaking, this student would miss Proficient, even with two criteria at 7.

Band 6, 7 and 8 at a glance

This table puts the official descriptors into short, plain words. It's our summary, so read the full table on ielts.org before test day.

Fluency and Coherence: from 6 to 7 to 8

Fluency is keeping going. Coherence is linking your ideas so the listener can follow them.

At band 6 you are willing to give long answers. But you hesitate, repeat or correct yourself often enough that the listener sometimes loses your point. At band 7 you still pause and restart now and then, but your ideas stay easy to follow. So the step from 6 to 7 is about whether your pauses break the thread.

The step from 7 to 8 is about why you pause. At band 7, when you pause, it is often in the middle of a sentence while you look for a word. At band 8 most pauses are to think about what to say next. Here are three made-up answers to a Part 3 question, "Why do people move to big cities?"

• Closer to band 6: "I think people move because, because the jobs. There is more jobs and, er, the salary is more high. And also the, the lifestyle."
• Closer to band 7: "Mostly for work, I'd say. Big cities have far more jobs, and the pay is, um, the pay tends to be better. On top of that, young people want a bit more excitement."
• Closer to band 8: "Work is the main pull, I think. But there's a quieter reason too. A lot of young people want a fresh start, away from a small town where everyone knows their business."

Lexical Resource: from 6 to 7 to 8

Here the examiner listens to your vocabulary: how many words you have, and how well you choose them.

At band 6 you have enough words to talk about a topic at length. Some choices are wrong, but your meaning is clear. At band 7 you start to use less common words and natural word pairs, like "heavy traffic" or "a tight deadline", even if you sometimes get one wrong. At band 8 you use a wide range with skill on any topic, and your words say what you mean, with only the odd slip.

Paraphrase matters at every level. It means finding other words when you don't know the one you need. Here is one idea, a busy week at work, said three ways.

• Closer to band 6: "The work was very busy and I was very tired. I did many tasks and it was very stressful."
• Closer to band 7: "It was a hectic week. I had three deadlines at once, so I was pretty worn out by Friday."
• Closer to band 8: "It was one of those weeks when everything lands on your desk at once. By Friday I was running on empty, but I got it all done."

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: from 6 to 7 to 8

Grammar is marked on range and accuracy. Range is how many kinds of sentence you can build. Accuracy is how few mistakes you make.

At band 6 you mix short and long sentences, but you make frequent errors in the long ones. The errors rarely stop the listener from understanding you. At band 7 your grammar is more flexible, and many of your sentences have no errors at all, though a few basic mistakes remain. At band 8 most of your sentences are error free, and the mistakes you make are occasional.

Long sentences are not the goal on their own. Here is a made-up answer about how a hometown has changed.

• Closer to band 6: "When I was child, my town has only one school. Now there are many school because the people who moved there is increasing."
• Closer to band 7: "When I was a child, there was only one school in my town. Now there are four, because a lot of families have moved there since the factory opened."
• Closer to band 8: "If you'd visited my town twenty years ago, you'd have found one school and a single bus route. It has grown so fast since the factory opened that it now has four schools."

Pronunciation, and does your accent count

Your accent is not marked down, as long as you are easy to understand. The descriptors mention accent only in one way: how much it gets in the way of understanding. At band 8 it has minimal effect, and at band 9 it has none. IDP, one of the three organisations that own IELTS, says it plainly: you don't get a score for your accent. So a speaker from India or Nigeria can reach band 8 or 9 without sounding British or American.

At band 6 you can be understood without much effort, but some words are unclear, and your rhythm may suffer if you speak too fast or give every word the same weight. At band 8 you are easy to understand throughout, and your stress and intonation sound natural over long answers. Band 7 has no separate description: it is all of band 6 and some, but not all, of band 8.

Try this sentence aloud: "I didn't say she took the money." Put the stress on "I", then on "money". The meaning changes each time. Using stress like that on purpose is part of what separates band 8 from band 6.

Practise against the descriptors

Record yourself answering a Part 2 cue card, then play it back. Listen for one criterion at a time. On the first play, count where you stop to find a word. On the second, listen for the sentences that go wrong near the end.

Our engine marks your recording on all four criteria against the public band descriptors, so you can see which one holds your band down. It's an estimate, not an official band.

Writing has band descriptors too, with four criteria of its own.