IELTS General Training, End To End.

The same Listening and Speaking papers as Academic, with Reading built from everyday, workplace and general-interest texts, and a letter in place of the visual-description task.

See the exam flow Take IELTS General Training

Pendorai IELTS General Training practice test screen

Screenshot slot

One IELTS General Training exam screen — ideally a Section 1 reading item, or the letter-writing task with its word counter.

public/images/tests/ielts-general/exam-runner.png

Total time: ≈2h 45m
Listening: 40 questions
Reading: 40 questions
Writing: 2 tasks

Test flow

How The Session Runs

Identical in shape to Academic. The three computer components run together and speaking is booked separately; the centre sets the order of the three.

Listening

≈30–34 min · 40 questions

The same four-part paper Academic candidates sit, played once, with a short review at the end.

Reading

60 min · 40 questions

Three sections moving from everyday notices through workplace documents to one longer text.

Writing

60 min · 2 tasks

A letter and an essay. Move between them freely, with a live word count and automatic saving.

Speaking

11–14 min · 3 parts

The same recorded interview as Academic, booked before or after the computer session.

On computer

Same Test. New Delivery.

IELTS is phasing out conventional paper delivery from mid-2026. It is a delivery change, not a redesign — the skills assessed, the construct, the task types and the way scores are read all stay exactly as they are.

What the screen gives you

A countdown timer and a question-number navigator.
Review and flag, so you can come back to anything.
Highlighting and note taking directly on the text.
Display and font controls, plus Help.

How each skill is laid out

Listening: one play, volume control, a short final review.
Reading: passage on the left, questions on the right, each scrolling on its own.
Writing: prompt on the left, your response on the right, with a live word count.
Answers save automatically as you go.

What Pendorai mirrors

The same navigation, flagging and timing behaviour.
Audio that plays once, exactly as it does on the day.
Typed answers marked the way the real answer key marks them.
Speaking run as a live conversation, then scored against the four criteria.

Listening

Four parts, forty questions, played once

The four parts move from everyday conversation to an academic lecture, and the questions always follow the order in which the information is spoken. You hear each recording once.

≈30–34 minutes
40 questions
Identical in both tests

Two speakers · everyday

Part 1

A conversation in an everyday social context.

Booking, enquiring, arranging — the kind of exchange you would really have.
Usually paired with form, note or table completion.

One speaker · everyday

Part 2

A monologue in an everyday social context.

A tour, a briefing, a description of a place or a facility.
Where plan, map and diagram labelling most often appears.

Usually two speakers · educational

Part 3

A discussion in an educational or training context.

Students and a tutor working through a project or an assignment.
Opinion, agreement and correction are what the questions turn on.

One speaker · academic

Part 4

A monologue on an academic subject.

A lecture extract, delivered straight through with no pauses.
Usually note, sentence or summary completion.

Recordings use a range of accents including British, Australian, New Zealand and North American.

Reading

Survival English, then work, then one long read

Every text is one you could meet outside a lecture theatre. The three sections step up from short practical notices to a single longer general-interest piece.

60 minutes
40 questions
2,150–2,375 words

2–3 short texts, or several very short ones

Section 1 — Everyday survival English

The things you read to get through a day.

Advertisements, notices and public information.
Timetables, instructions and service information.
Scanning and locating detail, rather than following an argument.

Normally two texts

Section 2 — Workplace English

The documents a job hands you.

Employee handbooks, job descriptions and workplace policies.
Training guides, contract extracts and staff development material.

One longer, more complex text

Section 3 — Longer general-interest text

The most demanding section.

Drawn from newspapers, magazines, books and online sources.
Where the argument-and-opinion question types concentrate.

Writing

Write a letter, then argue a case

The essay construct matches Academic Task 2, but the register across the paper is semi-formal and neutral rather than academic.

60 minutes
2 tasks
Both compulsory

≈20 minutes · at least 150 words

Task 1 — Letter

A situation, a recipient, and three points you must cover.

Register can be personal, semi-formal or formal — reading which one is part of the task.
All three bullet points have to be addressed, not just the easiest two.
Postal addresses are not needed above the letter.

≈40 minutes · at least 250 words · weighted ×2

Task 2 — Essay

A point of view, an argument or a problem of general interest.

Families, work, community, transport, leisure and public services.
Education, consumer behaviour, environment, housing and healthy lifestyles.
Everyday technology, framed for a general rather than an academic reader.
The same prompt families Academic Task 2 uses.

Speaking

Three parts, face to face

A recorded one-to-one interview that opens with familiar questions, moves through a two-minute solo turn, and ends in an abstract discussion of the same theme.

11–14 minutes
3 parts
Identical in both tests

4–5 minutes

Part 1 — Introduction and interview

Familiar questions about you.

Home, family, work, studies and interests.
Short answers, but developed — not one word.

3–4 minutes

Part 2 — Individual long turn

A cue card, one minute to prepare, up to two minutes to talk.

The card gives a topic, points to include and a final aspect to explain.
One or two brief follow-up questions can come afterwards.

4–5 minutes

Part 3 — Two-way discussion

The Part 2 theme, opened out.

Explain, analyse, compare, evaluate and speculate.
Causes, effects and where things are heading next.

Assessed on fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation.

Question types

Every Question Type You Can Meet

General Training uses the same fourteen Reading types and eleven Listening types as Academic — only the texts they sit on change.

Reading — 14 types

Multiple choice
True / False / Not Given
Yes / No / Not Given
Matching information
Matching headings
Matching features
Matching sentence endings
Sentence completion
Summary completion
Note completion
Table completion
Flow-chart completion
Diagram label completion
Short-answer questions

Listening — 11 types

Multiple choice, single answer
Multiple choice, multiple answers
Matching
Plan / map / diagram labelling
Form completion
Note completion
Table completion
Flow-chart completion
Summary completion
Sentence completion
Short-answer questions

Writing Task 2 — prompt families

Opinion / agree–disagree
Discuss both views + opinion
Advantages and disadvantages
Do advantages outweigh disadvantages
Positive or negative development
Cause and solution
Multi-part questions

Scoring

How It Adds Up

Each skill gets its own band, and the four combine into an overall band. Half bands are used throughout.

Band scale: 0–9
Listening: 40 questions
Reading: 40 questions
Writing: Task 2 ×2

Listening and Speaking are identical in General Training and Academic. Only Reading and Writing differ between the two.

In Pendorai

What IELTS General Practice Looks Like Here

Sit a full paper, or drill one task type until it stops costing you marks. Either way it is marked, explained, and folded back into what you study next.

Marked the moment you finish.
Listening and Reading are scored against the answer key instantly, question by question, with the passage line or the audio moment that held the answer.
Writing judged on the four criteria.
Task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy — each one commented on separately, not rolled into a single number.
Speaking with an AI examiner.
All three parts, out loud, in one sitting. The cue card, the one-minute preparation, the long turn, and the Part 3 discussion that follows your own answers.
A different paper every time.
Papers are generated fresh, so you practise the task type rather than memorising a fixed set of questions.

Preparing for more than one test?

The same study plan feeds every exam you sit. Pick the next one.

Take IELTS General Training TOEFL iBT IELTS Academic All tests