IELTS Reading practice tests 81 complete tests, every answer explained

IELTS Reading raw score to band score

You finished a paper and counted 30 correct. That number means nothing until you convert it, and it converts differently depending on which paper you sat. There is no partial credit and no penalty for a wrong answer. All 40 questions are worth one mark each, which is why leaving a blank is strictly worse than guessing. Academic Reading 39 to 40 correct · Band 9.0 37 to 38 correct · Band 8.5 35 to 36 correct · Band 8.0 33 to 34 correct · Band 7.5 30 to 32 correct · Band 7.0 27 to 29 correct · Band 6.5 23 to 26 correct · Band 6.0 19 to 22 correct · Band 5.5 15 to 18 correct · Band 5.0 13 to 14 correct · Band 4.5 10 to 12 correct · Band 4.0 8 to 9 correct · Band 3.5 6 to 7 correct · Band 3.0 General Training Reading 40 correct · Band 9.0 39 correct · Band 8.5 37 to 38 correct · Band 8.0 36 correct · Band 7.5 34 to 35 correct · Band 7.0 32 to 33 correct · Band 6.5 30 to 31 correct · Band 6.0 27 to 29 correct · Band 5.5 23 to 26 correct · Band 5.0 19 to 22 correct · Band 4.5 15 to 18 correct · Band 4.0 12 to 14 correct · Band 3.5 8 to 11 correct · Band 3.0 Score 30 on an Academic paper and that is Band 7.0. Score the same 30 on a General Training paper and it is a full band lower, because General Training needs 34 for the same 7.0. The reason is the texts, not the marking: General Training passages are shorter and simpler, so a higher proportion of correct answers is expected for the same reading ability. This is why practising the wrong track flatters you. Somebody entered for General Training who drills Academic papers walks in with a raw-score instinct calibrated a full band too generously.

What counts as a wrong answer

These rules come from the instructions printed on the paper, and they decide marks that have nothing to do with your English. Spelling. A misspelled answer is wrong, with no partial credit. In Reading the correct spelling is always somewhere on the page in front of you, so copy it rather than writing from memory. British and American spellings. Both score. Centre and center are both accepted. A spelling that is neither is simply wrong. Plurals. The word has to fit the gap grammatically. Write the singular where a plural is needed and the answer is wrong even though you found the right piece of text. Hyphens and the word limit. A hyphenated word normally counts as one word. Write it exactly as the passage writes it, and never invent a hyphen to squeeze under a limit. Numbers. Read the instruction line every time, because it varies within one paper. NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER allows a number on top of the words. NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS does not. Write numbers as numerals: faster, and impossible to misspell. Capitals. Capitalisation is not penalised, so block capitals are a safe habit. For True, False, Not Given, write the word out in full rather than T, F or NG.

How to spend the 60 minutes

There is no extra transfer time in Reading. Listening on paper gives you ten minutes at the end to copy answers across. Reading gives you none, so write each answer straight onto the answer sheet as you finish it. A plan to copy everything at the end is a plan to lose the answers you did not reach. A workable split, where the arithmetic matters more than the exact minutes: Minutes 0 to 2. Read the instruction lines for Passage 1 and note the word limits. Do not read the passage yet. Minutes 2 to 17. Passage 1. Read the questions, then locate. Most question types follow passage order, so each answer narrows the search for the next. Minute 17. Move to Passage 2 whether or not Passage 1 is finished. Mark the unanswered numbers so you can find them again. Minutes 17 to 36. Passage 2. Same method. Leave any Matching Information set until last, because it is the one type that does not follow passage order. Minutes 36 to 55. Passage 3. The hardest text usually sits here and carries exactly the same one mark per question as Passage 1. Do not let it eat the sweep. Minutes 55 to 60. Stop reading. Fill every blank with a guess, then check word limits, plurals and spelling in that order. A three-word answer under a two-word limit is a guaranteed zero and takes four seconds to catch.

Reading time management under the 60 minute clock Skimming and scanning, and when each one is the wrong move

Every question type in this bank, counted

True, False, Not Given · 545 questions Sentence Completion · 430 questions Yes, No, Not Given · 384 questions Matching Features · 383 questions Multiple Choice · 382 questions Matching Information · 376 questions Matching Headings · 280 questions Short Answer · 263 questions Summary Completion · 184 questions Diagram Labelling · 13 questions Those ten counts sum to 3,240, which is every question on this page. Each type has a method guide with the answer distribution counted across this bank, which is a thing no one else can publish because no one else owns their question set.

Why almost nobody publishes a complete IELTS reading test

Real IELTS passages are Cambridge copyright, so an editorial site cannot lawfully publish a complete test. That is a structural gap, not a competitive one, and no amount of money closes it. The workarounds are visible if you look. Some sites publish other publishers' papers. The largest of them fetches its answer key by script only after you submit, so the answers are not on the page at all, and it ships a notice on its explanations saying they are auto-generated and might not be entirely accurate. We wrote all 81 of these ourselves: the passages, the questions, the keys and the explanations. That is why complete tests exist here, why the answers are in the page you are reading, and why nothing on this site disclaims its own explanations.

What is free here, exactly

Two different things are free and they are not the same free. All 81 papers, all 3,240 questions and every explanation are free to read and self-mark, with no account and no card. That does not expire. Marked practice is the part that costs us money to run, so the free allowance is two reading tests marked for you, with the full written feedback on the first. What a plan adds is the clock, the band converted for your track, and a record of which trap keeps catching you across papers.

Academic Reading or General Training Reading: which paper are you actually sitting?

Two different papers share one name, and the difference decides which of the 81 tests above you should be working through. Both run 60 minutes, both carry 40 questions, and both give one mark per correct answer with the result reported in whole or half bands. Everything else differs. Academic Reading · three long texts · 2,150 to 2,750 words in total Texts are drawn from books, journals, magazines, newspapers and online resources, written for a non-specialist audience. The subjects are academic, but no subject knowledge is assumed. Nothing on the paper needs a degree in the topic. General Training Reading · three sections of increasing difficulty · 2,150 to 2,375 words in total Section 1 holds two or three short texts, or several shorter ones, on everyday topics: notices, advertisements, timetables. Section 2 holds two texts on work topics such as job descriptions, contracts and training material. Section 3 is one long text on a topic of general interest, longer and more complex than anything in the first two sections. Both formats above are the published specification on ielts.org. Now the part that costs people bands. Section 1 of a General Training paper is genuinely easier to read than Passage 3 of an Academic paper, and the conversion corrects for that, so the same raw score is worth less. Band 7.0 is 30 correct on Academic and 34 correct on General Training. 4 answers, same band. So "is General Training easier" has a split answer rather than a yes. The reading is easier in the first two sections and the scoring is harder across all three. Practising the track you are not entered for hands you the worse half of each. In this bank there are 41 Academic papers and 40 General Training ones. Every General Training paper here is built to that section shape: an everyday Section 1, a workplace Section 2 and a general interest Section 3.

True, False, Not Given: what separates False from Not Given

Two question types look identical on the page and ask for different things. True, False, Not Given is about facts in the passage. Does the statement agree with what the text states. Yes, No, Not Given is about the writer's views and claims. Does the statement agree with what the writer thinks. The decision that costs the most marks is False against Not Given, and it has a clean test. False means the passage says something that cannot be true at the same time as the statement, and you can point at the words that contradict it. Not Given means there is nothing to point at, because the passage never settles the question either way. Two rules fall out of that. Your own knowledge is not evidence. A statement can be obviously wrong in the real world and still be Not Given, because this passage never addressed it. Half a statement is not the statement. If the text confirms the first clause and says nothing about the second, the answer is Not Given rather than True. Write the word out in full. Capitalisation is not penalised, so block capitals are a safe habit, but T, F and NG are not what the instruction line asks for. Counted across this bank: True, False, Not Given · 545 questions · Not Given 217 (40%) · False 177 (32%) · True 151 (28%) Yes, No, Not Given · 384 questions · Not Given 155 (40%) · No 139 (36%) · Yes 90 (23%) That is our distribution, not the exam's. Nobody outside Cambridge knows the exam's, and a site quoting one is guessing. It is useful for one thing: if you almost never answer Not Given, you are forcing contradictions that are not in the text, and those numbers are a rough check on the habit.

Matching Headings or Matching Information: two different jobs

Both types attach something to a paragraph. That is where the resemblance ends, and treating them as one skill is why people who are good at one are often bad at the other. Matching Headings · the main idea · one set per paper, attached to one passage You are deciding what a paragraph is about as a whole. A detail that appears once inside the paragraph is not its main idea, and a heading repeating a striking word from the paragraph is more often the distractor than the answer. Read the paragraph, say what it is doing in your own words, then go to the list. Matching Information · one specific detail · paraphrased rather than quoted You are hunting a single fact, example or reason, and the question will rarely use the words the passage used. This is the one type that does not follow passage order, so the answer you just found tells you nothing about where the next one is. Leave the set until the other questions have already walked you through the text. Check the reuse rule on the paper instead of assuming it. Of the 81 Matching Information sets in this bank, 15 print an instruction restricting each letter to a single answer and 66 do not, which is the same way real papers vary. The instruction line is the rule, every time. In this bank: 280 Matching Headings questions across 47 papers, and 376 Matching Information questions across 76 papers.

What to do when two headings both fit

Which question types your track actually asks

The counts further up are the whole bank. Split by track they stop being trivia and start telling you what to practise. True, False, Not Given · Academic 232 · General Training 313 Sentence Completion · Academic 164 · General Training 266 Yes, No, Not Given · Academic 199 · General Training 185 Matching Features · Academic 141 · General Training 242 Multiple Choice · Academic 140 · General Training 242 Matching Information · Academic 199 · General Training 177 Matching Headings · Academic 244 · General Training 36 Short Answer · Academic 147 · General Training 116 Summary Completion · Academic 164 · General Training 20 Diagram Labelling · Academic 10 · General Training 3 True, False, Not Given and Multiple Choice are the only types that turn up on every one of the 81 papers. Everything else is optional on any given paper, which is why the paper you sat last week is a poor guide to the one you sit next month. The widest gap is Matching Headings: 244 questions across the Academic papers against 36 across the General Training ones, and only 6 of the 40 General Training papers carry it at all. Summary Completion splits the same way, 164 against 20. If General Training is your paper, those two are the cheapest things on a revision list to cut. It runs the other way too. Matching Features and Multiple Choice are both heavier on the General Training papers here than on the Academic ones, so a General Training candidate who has only ever read Academic advice has under-practised the two types most likely to be sitting in front of them.