Modules of IELTS

IELTS which as you know is an International English Language Testing System has two streams: General and Academic. The general is for nurses and the Academic is for those planning to go for higher studies abroad in English speaking countries. Each of the streams has four modules: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Listening: The duration of listening for this module is 30 minutes. It consists of three parts with a pause after each part. There are a set of questions are to be answered after each short session of listening. The first part of the session is listening to a dialogue of two persons. The second part is a monologue academic in nature. The last part is a discussion of four people on a topic of academic interest. Like the listening module the speaking module is planned into three distinct functions: The Warm up, the Monologue and the Discussions. The warm up is of duration of five minutes. This is meant to set the student at ease and build a rapport between the student and the examiner. After this the student is given a topic to think about and a sheet of paper and a pencil to organize her/his thoughts. The time allowed for this preparation is one minute. The student then speaks for about two minutes. The discussion part comes last. This is meant to test the spontaneous response. The parameters that would be evaluated are stress, rhythm, intonation, grammatical accuracy and range and last clarity of sounds. Writing Module: The matter for the writing module is two essays of forty and twenty minutes’ duration. The essay of forty minutes duration is argumentative in nature while the shorter one is an interpretation of a graph. The Reading Module plans a reading test of an hour’s duration of three different reading material graded from simple medium and difficult matter. Three sets of questions totaling to forty have to be answered during this one hour.