IELTS Speaking: criteria and practice

The Speaking test is a face to face interview of 11 to 14 minutes in three parts. It is the same in the Academic and General Training tests. Examiners assess four criteria, weighted equally: fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation.

Two of those criteria, vocabulary and grammar, work much as they do in Writing and are explained on the writing pages. The two that belong to speech, fluency and pronunciation, have pages here. After them come practice materials of our own for each part: sixty Part 1 questions on familiar topics, twelve cue cards for the Part 2 long turn with a sample answer, and thirty discussion questions for Part 3 with a method for developed answers. Speak your answers aloud and record them. Reading questions silently does not prepare you for an interview.

• Fluency and coherence
• Pronunciation
• Speaking Part 1: practice questions
• Speaking Part 2: cue cards
• Speaking Part 3: discussion
• Lexical resource vocabulary, shared with Writing
• Grammatical range and accuracy shared with Writing

Timed practice

Use the practice timer, which has the official times for Speaking Part 2 built in.

Independent practice site. IELTS Practice is not connected with, approved by or endorsed by the British Council, IDP IELTS or Cambridge University Press & Assessment, who jointly own IELTS. The practice tasks and sample answers here are our own; they are not official test questions, and we do not award bands. Facts about the test were read on ielts.org on 12 November 2026. For registration, fees, dates and official sample tests, go to ielts.org.