IELTS Speaking band scores
Find out what English-language skills IELTS examiners look for in your Speaking test, how your Speaking band scores are calculated and more.
The IELTS Speaking test assesses your ability to communicate in English. The examiner awards band scores for your spoken English-language skills. The Speaking test will take place in a face-to-face interview with a qualified IELTS examiner in a quiet room.
IELTS Speaking tests are conducted by trained and certified IELTS examiners. They must hold a relevant teaching qualification and have extensive teaching experience to become an IELTS examiner. When assessing your performance, they work with clearly defined criteria to assess your Speaking test.
Examiners assess your performance against 4 criteria. Fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation. Your Speaking results are given as band scores which range from a band 0 to a band 9. Each whole and half band score corresponds to a level of English-language competence.
To find out more about the assessment criteria used by IELTS examiners, search online for the IELTS Speaking public band descriptors.
Comparing speaking performances across bands 5 to 8
Find out how speaking performances vary across bands 5 to 8 in the IELTS Speaking test.
Band scores
Speaking band scores
Band 9
Fluency and coherence
Speaks coherently with fully appropriate cohesive features
Develops topics fully and appropriately
Lexical resource
Uses vocabulary with full flexibility and precision in all topics
Uses idiomatic language naturally and accurately
Grammatical range and accuracy
Uses a full range of structures naturally and appropriately
Produces consistently accurate structures apart from ‘slips’
Pronunciation
Uses a full range of pronunciation features with precision and subtlety
Sustains flexible use of features throughout
Is effortless to understand
Band 8
Fluency and coherence
Speaks fluently with only occasional repetition or self- correction; hesitation is usually content-related and only rarely to search for language
Develops topics coherently and appropriately
Lexical resource
Uses a wide vocabulary resource readily and flexibly to convey precise meaning
Uses less common and idiomatic vocabulary skilfully, with occasional inaccuracies
Uses paraphrase effectively as required
Grammatical range and accuracy
Uses a wide range of structures flexibly
Produces a majority of error-free sentences with only very occasional inappropriacies or basic/non-systematic errors
Pronunciation
Uses a wide range of pronunciation features
Sustains flexible use of features, with only occasional lapses
Is easy to understand throughout; L1 accent has minimal effect on intelligibility
Band 7
Fluency and coherence
Speaks at length without noticeable effort or loss of coherence
May demonstrate language-related hesitation at times, or some repetition and/or self-correction
Uses a range of connectives and discourse markers with some flexibility
Lexical resource
Uses vocabulary resource flexibly to discuss a variety of topics
Uses some less common and idiomatic vocabulary and shows some awareness of style and collocation, with some inappropriate choices
Uses paraphrase effectively
Grammatical range and accuracy
Uses a range of complex structures with some flexibility
Frequently produces error-free sentences, though some grammatical mistakes persist
Pronunciation
Shows all the positive features of Band 6 and some, but not all, of the positive features of Band 8
Band 6
Fluency and coherence
Is willing to speak at length, though may lose coherence at times due to occasional repetition, self-correction or hesitation
Uses a range of connectives and discourse markers but not always appropriately
Lexical resource
Has a wide enough vocabulary to discuss topics at length and make meaning clear in spite of inappropriacies
Generally paraphrases successfully
Grammatical range and accuracy
Uses a mix of simple and complex structures, but with limited flexibility
May make frequent mistakes with complex structures, though these rarely cause comprehension problems
Pronunciation
Uses a range of pronunciation features with mixed control
Shows some effective use of features but this is not sustained
Can generally be understood throughout, though mispronunciation of individual words or sounds reduces clarity at times
Band 5
Fluency and coherence
Usually maintains flow of speech but uses repetition, self correction and/or slow speech to keep going
May over-use certain connectives and discourse markers
Produces simple speech fluently, but more complex communication causes fluency problems
Lexical resource
Manages to talk about familiar and unfamiliar topics but uses vocabulary with limited flexibility
Attempts to use paraphrase but with mixed success
Grammatical range and accuracy
Produces basic sentence forms with reasonable accuracy
Uses a limited range of more complex structures, but these usually contain errors and may cause some comprehension problems
Pronunciation
Shows all features of band 4 and some, but not all the positive features of band 6
Band 4
Fluency and coherence
Cannot respond without noticeable pauses and may speak slowly, with frequent repetition and self-correction
Links basic sentences but with repetitious use of simple connectives and some breakdowns in coherence
Lexical resource
Is able to talk about familiar topics but can only convey basic meaning on unfamiliar topics and makes frequent errors in word choice
Rarely attempts paraphrase
Grammatical range and accuracy
Produces basic sentence forms and some correct simple sentences but subordinate structures are rare
Errors are frequent and may lead to misunderstanding
Pronunciation
Uses a limited range of pronunciation features
Attempts to control features but lapses are frequent
Mispronunciations are frequent and cause some difficulty for the listener
Band 3
Fluency and coherence
Speaks with long pauses
Has limited ability to link simple sentences
Gives only simple responses and is frequently unable to convey basic message
Lexical resource
Uses simple vocabulary to convey personal information
Has insufficient vocabulary for less familiar topics
Grammatical range and accuracy
Attempts basic sentence forms but with limited success, or relies on apparently memorised utterances
Makes numerous errors except in memorised expressions
Pronunciation
Shows some of the features of band 2 and some, but not all, of the positive features of band 4
Band 2
Fluency and coherence
Pauses lengthily before most words
Little communication possible
Lexical resource
Only produces isolated words or memorised utterances
Grammatical range and accuracy
Cannot produce basic sentence forms
Pronunciation
Speech is often unintelligible
Band 1
Fluency and coherence
No communication possible
No rateable language
Lexical resource
No communication possible
No rateable language
Grammatical range and accuracy
No communication possible
No rateable language
Pronunciation
No communication possible
No rateable language
Band 0
Fluency and coherence
Does not attend
Lexical resource
Does not attend
Grammatical range and accuracy
Does not attend
Pronunciation
Does not attend
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