What Is a Good IELTS Score?

What Is a Good IELTS Score?

To answer that question, let’s first look at the British Council’s official descriptions of the different bands to give you a general idea:

According to the British Council, if you score a 9 on the exam, you’re an “expert” in English; if you score an 8, you’re “very good” at English; and so on.

IELTS scores almost always range from 1 to 9 (“non-user” to “expert”), and there is a 0 score as well (“did not attempt”). You can also get a score ending in .5, for example, 6.5, 7.5., 8.5. Each individual IELTS Skill (Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking) gets a band score in this range. You also get an overall band score for your whole test. This “composite” score is the average of your individual IELTS scores, and is meant to represent your overall English ability.

You can find your baseline score with our free IELTS diagnostic tests for IELTS Listening, IELTS Speaking, IELTS Writing, and IELTS Reading.

IELTS General Reading Score vs. Academic

IELTS General Reading is significantly different from IELTS Academic; the types of Reading passages are different, and it’s scored differently. To see how questions are weighed for the IELTS General Reading score vs. the IELTS Academic Reading score, go to Magoosh’s IELTS Score calculator and scroll down to the tables for “Raw to band score conversion” for both General Reading and Academic.