IELTS questions, honest answers

None of those. BandNine is a practice gym with an AI coach. It's a social enterprise that keeps real IELTS practice cheap. You write, speak, listen, and read. In about a minute, an AI working from the official IELTS band descriptors shows you exactly which words are losing you marks. No videos. No 50-lesson course. Just practice with feedback.

Yes, because videos are why your score is stuck. Watching makes you good at theory. But your band only goes up when you write a sentence, see it marked wrong, and see the fix. One session here will teach you more about your own mistakes than 40 hours of videos taught you about IELTS.

In under three minutes. Take the free test, write a short essay or record a 60-second answer, and the AI gives you a score for all four things an examiner marks: your ideas, how you organise them, your vocabulary, and your grammar. It also highlights each sentence. No signup. No credit card.

No. We have Band 4 students aiming for 6 and Band 7 students pushing for 8.5. The AI matches its feedback to your level. No baby explanations if you're already strong, and no hard words if you're still fixing 'a' and 'the'.

Really free, forever. The free tier gives you 3 writing scores, 3 speaking scores, 2 reading passages, and 2 listening exercises. You see your real band score for free. Only the detailed AI feedback (fixes for each sentence, tips, and a study plan) needs a paid plan. We want you to check that the scoring is correct before you pay anything.

The 1 Month, 3 Months and 6 Months plans renew at the same price until you cancel, so your prep does not stop halfway through a course you are relying on. You are told the amount and the renewal date before you pay. Cancelling takes two clicks from Settings, you keep access to the end of the period you already paid for, and you are never charged again. If you would rather not renew at all, the $12 / 15 Days plan is a single charge that stops on its own.

Test in about two weeks? $12 / 15 Days: crash-prep mode.
Test in under 4 weeks? $19 / 1 Month: get ready fast.
Test in 1 to 3 months? $39 / 3 Months: includes our money-back score guarantee (the exact terms are on the guarantee page).
Test in 3 to 6 months, or just starting? $59 / 6 Months: the most time, faster AI scoring, and the same guarantee.
All plans give you the same features. The only difference is how long your access lasts.

Coaching classes pay for tutors, classrooms, ads, and franchise fees, and you pay for all of it. BandNine has one cost: running the AI, which is about $0.03 to $0.50 per active user each month. We don't need to charge $400 for a course because we don't spend $400 per student. That saving goes to you.

Fair question. We use AI too. The difference is what we've built around it.

A normal chatbot gives okay essay feedback. But it will not:
• Mark you on the four things a real examiner marks: your ideas, how you organise them, your vocabulary, and your grammar. That's the difference between a 6.5 and a 7.
• Copy the real computer test layout for Listening and Reading. You can't practise staying focused for the whole test by chatting.
• Show you the trick answers in Listening, where most students lose marks.
• Follow your progress over weeks and tell you which part to practise on which day.
• Turn your scores into Canada CRS or Australia points straight away.
• Post how close its marking runs to our calibration set every Saturday.

If your test is in two weeks and you just need one essay checked, a free chatbot is fine. If you need to raise your score across all four parts and a visa depends on it, you need a tool built for the exam.

Try the free test. If the feedback isn't sharper than a chatbot's, don't pay us.

We measure it every week and publish the number, good or bad. Every Saturday an automated job re-scores a fixed set of scripts through the same scorer you use, compares each result with a per-criterion ground-truth band, and writes the deviation to a public table. The current figure and every run since May are here: we publish our AI's scoring accuracy every week, with the short version on the quality page.

Two honest limits. The ground truth is our own labelling against the official marking guide, so the number shows agreement with careful teachers, not proof of agreement with the examiner who marks your paper. And it covers Writing: there is no published figure for Speaking yet. You still get a separate score for the four things an examiner marks (Task Response, Coherence & Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range & Accuracy), which is what tells you where to work.

Partly, and we would rather tell you exactly how it works. Your speaking is turned into text by OpenAI Whisper, then the AI scores your fluency (pauses, restarts, filler words), your vocabulary and your grammar from that transcript. The pronunciation band is also inferred from the transcript rather than measured from the audio waveform, so it is the weakest of the four numbers. Treat it as a guide to what to practise next, and check it with a teacher before you act on it.

That's the whole reason BandNine exists: to never do that. The AI points to the exact sentence losing you marks, shows the better version, and tells you which of the four things it changed and by how much. Here is real feedback: "Sentence 4 in paragraph 2 ('Many people they think') drops your grammar score from 7 to 6.5. Change it to: 'Many people think.' Saying the subject twice like this is common for Hindi speakers."

Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6 does the scoring and feedback. OpenAI Whisper turns your speaking into text. We chose Claude because it follows detailed marking guides (like the IELTS one) more reliably than others, and it's less likely to make up feedback that sounds sure but is wrong.

Both, but our layout is built for the computer test (the one most people take now). Our listening and reading exercises copy the computer test layout exactly: split-screen reading, buttons at the bottom, blanks to fill in, and timed sections. No surprises on test day. If you take the paper test, the content is the same. Only the screen looks different.

Both. Reading and Writing have separate Academic and General Training modes. Switch between them in your dashboard. Listening and Speaking are the same for both test types, just like the real IELTS.

Yes. The Mock Speaking Test runs the full 11 to 14 minute interview: Part 1 (intro questions), Part 2 (1 minute to prepare + a 2-minute talk), and Part 3 (deeper discussion). The examiner voice asks real bank questions, with Part 3 questions that follow from the Part 2 topic, and the AI scores the whole interview. Each test draws a fresh question set, so two attempts are rarely the same exam. The questions are fixed per set, not generated from your answers.

Bring the same ID you booked with: a passport if you're an international candidate, or a national ID where that's allowed. Bring a clear water bottle with the label taken off, and nothing else; phones, watches, and notes go in a locker. Arrive at least 30 minutes early. If you're late, they won't let you in and you lose your fee. No exceptions, no refund.

The real IELTS Listening uses several native accents: British, Australian, New Zealand, American and Canadian. British is the most common. The recordings play once only, so you can't replay them. BandNine's 280 listening exercises are voiced in British English only, because British is the most common accent on the real test. Every exercise ships with its full transcript, so a line that catches your ear is one you can read back. For exposure to the other accents, use official practice material alongside the bank.

A rule that works: 15-20-25 minutes per passage (they get harder). Don't read the passage first. Read the questions, then scan for key words. If a question takes more than 90 seconds, skip it and come back. There's no penalty for wrong answers in Reading or Listening, so never leave a blank. Always guess. BandNine's Reading mode shows a timer for each passage to help you learn this pace.

Two years from your test date (some Australian programs accept three). Your Test Report Form (TRF) is sent free to up to 5 places when you book. Extra copies cost a small fee. Universities and immigration offices check scores straight from IELTS, so nothing arrives late or gets "lost in the mail."

Canada Express Entry: CLB 7 (Band 6 in each part) at least, CLB 9 (Band 8 in each part) for the most CRS points.
Australia skilled migration: Band 6 in each part at least; Band 7+ for 10 extra points, Band 8+ for 20.
UK Skilled Worker visa: Band 5.5 in each part (CEFR B2) for applications from 8 January 2026. Band 4 (B1) only if you held the visa before that date and are extending it.
US universities: Most want 6.5 to 7.5 overall; top ones want 7+ in each part.
BandNine's Band Calculator turns your score into immigration points straight away.

IELTS: accepted by 11,000+ places, including UK, Australia, and Canada immigration. Known everywhere.
TOEFL: strong for US universities; less used for migration.
PTE Academic: fully computer-marked, fast results, popular for Australia.
Duolingo English Test: the cheapest ($65) and taken at home, but accepted by far fewer places.
For moving to Canada, the UK, or Australia, IELTS is the safest choice. For the US only, TOEFL works just as well.

About 200 hours of focused practice to raise your score by one band. Real timelines: Band 5→6 = 6 to 8 weeks, Band 6→7 = 10 to 12 weeks, Band 7→8 = 12 to 16 weeks. But the number isn't the point. How often you practise is. 30 minutes every day beats 4 hours every Sunday. BandNine's plan keeps you going a little each day without burning you out.

2 weeks: Get ready fast. Take the first test, do 1 mock test a day, and fix only your 2 weakest habits. No new words. Polish what you already know.
1 month: First test → 5 days on each part in turn, 1 full mock test a week, and fix each sentence mistake as it shows up.
3 months: Build your skills (weeks 1 to 4), work on your weak spots (weeks 5 to 9), then do full mock tests and practise for test day (weeks 10 to 12).
The dashboard builds the right plan for you based on your test date.

One Skill Retake (OSR) lets you redo just one of the four parts within 60 days, instead of paying for a whole new test. It's only on the Computer-Delivered IELTS at some centres. Use it if 3 of your 4 scores are good enough and only one is too low. In some places it costs about the same as a full test, so check whether redoing all four might be the smarter move.

Three choices, in order: (1) Ask for an Enquiry on Results (EOR / re-mark) within 6 weeks if you think a part was marked wrong. About 50% of these lead to a higher score, and you get the fee back if your score changes. (2) Use One Skill Retake if only one part was too low. (3) Take the full test again. There's no waiting time and no limit on how often you retake it. Most important: don't guess what went wrong. Use the free test to find the real gap before you pay for another test.

You can reach it, and it's not rare. There are proven Band 9 scores from people whose first language isn't English, including in Speaking, where the rules clearly do not ask for a native accent. Band 9 means "expert user" (fluent, accurate, and natural), not "born in London." What it does need: being very careful in every sentence. BandNine's sentence-by-sentence feedback is built for exactly this: to find the last 5% that separates an 8 from a 9.

No. The official IELTS Speaking rules score how clearly you speak, not your accent. An Indian, Nigerian, Filipino, or Korean accent is fine, as long as the individual sounds are clear and your stress doesn't hide your meaning. Many Band 9 speakers keep a strong first-language accent. Don't fake an accent. It usually lowers your score because it makes you less consistent.

Only if the examiner truly can't read it. There's no mark for neatness. You can write in ALL CAPS if that's clearer. Cross out mistakes with one line. Examiners skip crossed-out text. The bigger risk with messy handwriting is wasted time: messy writers often rewrite sentences instead of moving on. On the computer test, this isn't a problem at all.

Yes, a lot. The fixed word-count penalty was removed in 2018, but examiners still take marks off your Task Achievement because a short essay can't fully answer the question. Real impact: a 230-word Task 2 essay usually gets no more than Band 6 for Task Achievement, no matter how good it is. Aim for 270 to 290 words (Task 2) and 165 to 185 (Task 1). BandNine warns you if your answer is too short before it scores it.

It happens, and you can recover. Use a filler phrase to buy a few seconds to think: "That's an interesting question. Let me think for a moment." This counts as natural speech, not hesitation. Long silences do lower your fluency score, but a clear 10-second restart hurts far less than rambling. The Mock Speaking module trains this exact recovery.

On the 3-Month and 6-Month plans: take the first test as your starting point, practise 4 days a week (3 or more scored exercises), and if your predicted band hasn't gone up by at least 0.5 by day 60, we give you 100% of your money back. Just ask from your account between day 60 and day 75. No phone calls, and you don't have to "prove you tried." We can offer this because students who use BandNine often improve well past 0.5 of a band. The guarantee takes away the risk for people who've been let down by IELTS coaching before.

Yes, a 7-day refund on every plan, no questions asked. After 7 days, refunds are tied to the +0.5-band guarantee on the 3 and 6-month plans. Email support@bandnine.ai from your account email. Most refunds are done within 24 hours.

Your essays, recordings, and scores are stored in Supabase (PostgreSQL) with Row-Level Security, so only your own account can read them, and everything travels over encrypted connections. They are never used to train other companies' AI, never sold, and never shared with anyone outside the scoring process. You can delete your account and all your data with one click in Settings, and it's gone for good, not just hidden.