The International English Language Testing System that is required to be taken by Non-native students so as to study in countries where the medium of instruction is English. As the name implies it is basically an English test for testing the proficiency of the language in an individual. The test system is jointly managed by the British Council and IDP education and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations and more than 1 million candidates are taking the exam all over the world. The test has two versions : 1. Academic 2. General training. IELTS measures test takers' ability to communicate in English across all four language skills - listening, reading, writing and speaking.
The duration of the IELTS examination is 2 hours and 45 minutes and it is divided into four sub categories. The questionnaire is different for academic and general version.
The maximum score that can be attained in IELTS is 9 and there is no concept of pass or fail in this test as the qualification criteria varies with universities. Most of the academic institutions expect the value to between 5.5 and 7. Some universities expect the score to be as high as 8.5. The meaning of the scores are below.