IELTS for General Training – prove you have practical, everyday English language skills

IELTS General Training measures English language proficiency in a practical, everyday context. The tasks and tests in this English proficiency test reflect both workplace and social situations. It’s the IELTS test you should take if you’re considering overseas employment opportunities. 

Download our free guide to the IELTS General Training test

Take the IELTS General Training test if you would like to:

  • train or study at below degree level
  • Explore overseas jobs or do work-related training in an English speaking country
  • emigrate to an English speaking country
  • get a better job in your own country.

If you want to emigrate to the UK, find out more about IELTS for UK Visas and Immigration (IELTS for UKVI).

Fee for IELTS Academic: IELTS Pricing Document

What does the fee include? The British Council IELTS General Training fee in Pakistan includes exclusive IELTS preparation materials, free IELTS practice tests and much more.

Duration: 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Format: There are four sections to the IELTS General training test: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. When you book your IELTS General training test with the British Council, the test will take place in an official British Council IELTS test centre.

Your Speaking test may be offered on the same day as the other sections of the test, or up to a week before or after. You will receive notification in advance if your Speaking test is on a different day to your main test day.

Duration: 30 minutes +10 minutes to transfer your responses to the answer sheet

Format:  4 audio recordings in varying accents. You will write your answers using:

  • multiple choice
  • matching points
  • diagram labelling 
  • sentence completion

You will listen to four recordings of native English speakers and then write your answers to a series of questions.

  • Recording 1 – a conversation between two people set in an everyday social context.
  • Recording 2 - a monologue set in an everyday social context, e.g. a speech about local facilities.
  • Recording 3 – a conversation between up to four people set in an educational or training context, e.g. a university tutor and a student discussing an assignment.
  • Recording 4 - a monologue on an academic subject, e.g. a university lecture.

Assessors will be looking for evidence of your ability to understand the main ideas and detailed factual information, the opinions and attitudes of speakers, the purpose of an utterance and evidence of your ability to follow the development of ideas.

Duration: 60 minutes

Format:

Three reading passages with tasks:

  • Section 1 - two short or three short factual texts
  • Section 2  - two short work-related, factual texts
  • Section 3 -  one longer text on a topic of general interest

The Reading section consists of 40 questions, designed to test a wide range of reading skills. These include reading for main ideas, reading for detail, skimming, understanding logical argument and recognising writers' opinions, attitudes and purpose.

This includes extracts from books, magazines, newspapers, notices, advertisements, company handbooks and guidelines. These are materials you are likely to encounter on a daily basis in an English-speaking environment.

Duration: 60 minutes

Format:

  • Letter writing task (minimum 150 words)
  • Short essay writing task (minimum 250 words).

Topics are of general interest. There are two tasks:

  • Task 1 - you will be presented with a situation and asked to write a letter requesting information, or explaining the situation. The letter may be personal, semi-formal or formal in style.
  • Task 2 - you will be asked to write an essay in response to a point of view, argument or problem. The essay can be fairly personal in style.

Duration: 10 - 15 minutes

 Format:

  • Face-to-face interview.
  • Short questions and speaking at length about a familiar topic.

Please note: Depending on the test centre location, you may be required to book the Speaking section of your test on a different day.

The Speaking section assesses your use of spoken English. Every test is recorded.

  • Part 1 - the examiner will ask you general questions about yourself and a range of familiar topics, such as home, family, work, studies and interests. This part lasts between four and five minutes.
  • Part 2 - you will be given a card which asks you to talk about a particular topic. You will have one minute to prepare before speaking for up to two minutes. The examiner will then ask one or two questions on the same topic.
  • Part 3 - you will be asked further questions about the topic in Part 2. This will give you the opportunity to discuss more abstract ideas and issues. This part of the test lasts between four and five minutes.

Now some of our IELTS test centres can deliver the IELTS Speaking test via video calls. This means more flexibility and more availability of IELTS Speaking tests in Pakistan.

You will take the Video-Call IELTS Speaking test at an official IELTS test centre with the same high standard of identity verification. The test will be exactly the same as the in-person Speaking test in terms of content, scoring, timing, level of difficulty, question format and security arrangements.  Delivered by an IELTS Speaking Examiner, the video-call Speaking test will maintain the face-to-face feature of the in-person Speaking test.

For more information, please contact your local test centre.

Book your IELTS General Training test

Success starts with IELTS. If your goal is to study below degree level, look for overseas jobs or emigrate to an English speaking country, you need to take the IELTS General Training test.

At the British Council, we are committed to providing you with the support you need to enable you to do well in the test. When you book with us, you get Free unlimited access to Road to IELTS Last Minute course. This includes nine IELTS preparation videos giving advice and tutorials, free IELTS mock tests, 100 interactive activities and two IELTS General Training practice tests for each of the four skills.

Find an IELTS General Training test data in Pakistan

Before booking your test, make sure to check which test you need with the organisations you are applying to.

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