How your raw score becomes a band

You get one mark for each Listening or Reading question, out of 40. Your raw score becomes a band from 1 to 9 in half-band steps. There is no band 6.3. The tables below show the usual raw scores for each band. Read the note at the bottom before you judge your result.

Nine bands, in half-band steps. The higher bands take the most careful work.

Use the right conversion table

Listening uses the same table for Academic and General Training. Reading has two. General Training Reading needs more correct answers for the same band because its texts are easier. Use the table for your test. The wrong table will give you the wrong result.

Listening for both training types
Raw /40	Band
39–40	9.0
37–38	8.5
35–36	8.0
33–34	7.5
30–32	7.0
27–29	6.5
23–26	6.0
18–22	5.5
16–17	5.0
13–15	4.5
10–12	4.0
8–9	3.5
6–7	3.0
4–5	2.5
3	2.0
2	1.5
1	1.0

Academic Reading
Raw /40	Band
39–40	9.0
37–38	8.5
35–36	8.0
33–34	7.5
30–32	7.0
27–29	6.5
23–26	6.0
19–22	5.5
15–18	5.0
13–14	4.5
10–12	4.0
8–9	3.5
6–7	3.0
4–5	2.5
3	2.0
2	1.5
1	1.0

General Training Reading
Raw /40	Band
40	9.0
39	8.5
37–38	8.0
36	7.5
34–35	7.0
32–33	6.5
30–31	6.0
27–29	5.5
23–26	5.0
19–22	4.5
15–18	4.0
12–14	3.5
9–11	3.0
6–8	2.5
4–5	2.0
2–3	1.5
1	1.0

Band 7.0 highlighted for comparison: 30 correct answers reaches it in Listening and Academic Reading. General Training Reading asks for 34.

How your overall band is rounded

Your overall band is the mean of your four section bands, rounded by one official rule. A remainder of .25 or more rounds up to the next half band. Anything less rounds down. So 6.25 becomes 6.5, but 6.125 becomes 6.0. This can show you which section may be easiest to improve.

Worked examples
Mean of sections	Overall band	Why
6.125	6.0	remainder .125: rounds down
6.25	6.5	remainder .25: rounds up
6.5	6.5	exact half band
6.75	7.0	remainder .25 above 6.5: rounds up
7.1	7.0	remainder .1: rounds down

Writing has its own arithmetic. Task 2 counts twice as much as Task 1 in the Writing band. If you split the hour evenly, Task 2 gets too little time. Give Task 2 the bigger share.

Aiming for band 7 or 8

The highest bands need the most correct answers

The highest bands need many correct answers. In Listening and Academic Reading you need 30 out of 40 for band 7, and 35 for band 8. That is only a few marks apart, so one small mistake can move you down to a lower band.

At this level you already know the tasks. The marks you lose are small ones: a spelling mistake, one word over the limit, or a word you heard but wrote in the wrong form. The lessons show these common mistakes for each question type, so you can find them in your own answers and correct them.

See the lessons

Before you judge your result

The IELTS partners do not publish one fixed conversion. Each version of the test is equated during production, so the raw score a band needs can move by about one mark, depending on how hard that paper is. Treat the tables above as close estimates, not exact cut-offs.

Treat any practice band, including ours, as an estimate. Watch the trend across several mocks. One mock does not tell you much. If three mocks point the same way, pay attention to that trend. Our results screen shows the raw score next to the band and how far you are from the next half band. That is the number you can work on this week.