IELTS Speaking is not a general test of good English. It is four specific criteria, each worth exactly a quarter of your score. Knowing what they are tells you where your practice time is being wasted.
Most IELTS Speaking preparation is spent in the wrong places. Candidates memorise long answers, collect impressive words, and worry about their accent — none of which is scored the way they imagine.
The test has four criteria, each worth exactly 25% of your Speaking band. Knowing what they are tells you immediately where your practice is being wasted.
The format, briefly
- Part 1 (4–5 min): familiar questions — home, work, studies, hobbies. Short answers expected.
- Part 2 (3–4 min): the long turn. You get a card, one minute to prepare, then speak for up to two minutes.
- Part 3 (4–5 min): abstract discussion connected to Part 2. The hardest part, and the one that separates bands 6 and 7+.
It is a conversation with a human examiner, recorded. There is no "correct opinion" anywhere in it.
The four criteria in plain language
1. Fluency and coherence
Can you keep going, and does your answer hold together? Long silences and constant self-correction cost marks; hesitating naturally while you think does not. Coherence means your ideas connect — linking words used appropriately, not sprinkled everywhere.
The most common self-inflicted wound: stopping mid-sentence to fix a small grammar error. That damages fluency more than the original error damaged grammar. Leave it and keep moving.
2. Lexical resource
Range and precision of vocabulary, plus whether you can paraphrase when a word escapes you. Note precision: a common word used exactly right scores better than a rare word used slightly wrong. Examiners are trained to notice memorised "band 9 vocabulary" dropped into unnatural places, and it actively hurts you.
Paraphrasing is explicitly rewarded. Not knowing a word is not a problem if you can talk around it: "I can't remember the exact term — it's the machine that keeps food cold."
3. Grammatical range and accuracy
Both halves count. Only simple sentences caps your range; complex attempts full of errors cap your accuracy. Aim for a mixture: mostly correct simple and compound sentences, with some genuinely complex ones — conditionals, relative clauses, a range of tenses. See tenses explained simply for the forms that appear most.
4. Pronunciation
This is scored on being understood, not on sounding British or American. A clear Indian, Nigerian or Brazilian accent can score band 8. What costs marks: word stress in the wrong place, flat intonation, and dropped final consonants. Our pronunciation guide covers exactly these.
Part 1: answer, then extend
The failure mode is one-word answers. The fix is a simple formula: answer + reason + example.
Q: "Do you like cooking?"
"Yes, I do."
"I do, yeah — mainly because it's the one part of my day that isn't on a screen. I usually cook something simple after work, and at weekends I'll try something more ambitious."
Two or three sentences per answer. Do not give a Part 2 speech here — length is not the goal.
Part 2: use the minute properly
The preparation minute is not for writing sentences. Write four or five bullet points — keywords only — following the prompts on the card, which are already a structure.
A reliable shape for the two minutes:
- Introduce the topic in one sentence.
- Cover each bullet on the card, in order.
- Spend longest on the final "explain why" bullet — this is where range shows.
- Finish with a short concluding sentence.
Two practical notes. Keep talking until stopped — the examiner will interrupt at two minutes and that is completely normal, not a sign you did badly. And you may invent the content entirely. Nobody is checking whether your grandmother really taught you to swim; truth is not a criterion, and a fictional story you can tell fluently beats a true one you cannot.
Part 3: the band 7 gate
Here the questions turn abstract: not your experience, but society, trends, causes and consequences. Candidates who did well in Parts 1 and 2 often lose ground because they keep answering personally.
Q: "Why do you think people are cooking less than they used to?"
"Because I'm busy and I order food."
"I'd say it's mainly a time issue — people work longer hours than their parents did, and delivery has become so cheap that it's often the rational choice. Although I think there's also a skills element: fewer people were taught to cook at home."
Useful structures for this part: "I'd say…", "It depends on…", "On the one hand…on the other…", "That's an interesting point, because…", "I'd imagine…". Hedging language — tend to, generally, in most cases, arguably — is genuinely valuable here, since it shows you can express degrees of certainty.
What to stop doing
- Memorising whole answers. Examiners detect it easily and it caps your score.
- Forcing in idioms. One natural idiom helps; five forced ones hurt.
- Overusing linking words. "Moreover, furthermore, in addition" in every sentence sounds like a written essay, not speech.
- Trying to sound native. Not a criterion. Clarity is.
- Apologising for your English. It wastes time and draws attention to the wrong thing.
A four-week practice plan
- Daily (10 min): one Part 2 card, recorded. Listen back once, note one thing to fix.
- Three times a week: twenty minutes of Part 3 style questions with a partner or AI tutor — specifically practising abstract answers.
- Weekly: one full mock test, timed, no stopping.
- Ongoing: collect topic vocabulary for the common themes — education, technology, environment, work, health, city life — using the method in building vocabulary that sticks.
The recording is non-negotiable. It is the only way to hear the hesitations and repetitions you cannot notice while speaking. Practising Part 3 with real people is also worth arranging deliberately — live Spaces on Zeno are well suited to it, because abstract discussion with strangers is exactly what the test simulates. For session structure, see practising with a partner.