| General | Academic |
| It has 4 short passages which are Lengthy and difficult | It has 3 Long passages which are difficult |
| It is more general | It is written in academic style texts such as text books, Journals articles |
| – General tests (such as newspaper, magazine etc) – Work place ( such as employment, Job description, etc) – Social activities ( such as notices, adverts placements etc) | It has academic-related topics such as science, sociology
|
IELTS Academic and General Training Test Similarities in Reading
- IELTS Scoring: This shows that general training test candidates must answer a larger number of reading question papers to receive the band score as an academic test candidate which explains that the question types in IELTS general tests are the same as the IELTS academic tests. But the reading comprehension in an academic test is more difficult in vocabulary and style.
The same score table is used for both IELTS academic and general training tests. However, these scores are not important for the assessment of the IELTS speaking and writing papers, which are usually graded by the IELTS examiners following the criteria.
A candidate’s score might be adjusted slightly upward or downward based on the difficulty of the test.
Listening and Speaking Tests
The listening and speaking tests are the same for IELTS academic and general. There is one speaking and listening test with the same scoring
The listening part is a recorded voice played to the candidate to answer the questions while the speaking part is more like a conversation between two people involving the interviewer and the candidate. Here, the candidate is asked some personal related questions; job, likes and dislikes, family, and career goals. At the end of the listening and speaking questions, the candidate is scored.
