Listening and Reading are the two IELTS papers with a hard, countable score. Forty questions, one mark each, no negative marking and no half marks. What confuses most candidates is the step after that: how 40 marks turn into a band, and why the same raw score can mean different things depending on which test you sat.
One mark per question, nothing subtracted
Every question is worth exactly one mark. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, which has one immediate practical consequence: never leave a blank. A guess is worth a small chance of a mark; a blank is worth zero, guaranteed.
Spelling and grammar count in the answer boxes. A correct idea written as an incorrectly spelled word is marked wrong, which is why transfer errors quietly cost more bands than most candidates realise.
Your total out of 40 is your raw score. That number is then converted to a band.
The conversion tables
These are the widely published approximations. The exact boundaries shift slightly between test versions, and the reason for that is explained further down.
Listening — the same table for Academic and General Training:
| Raw score | Band |
|---|---|
| 39–40 | 9.0 |
| 37–38 | 8.5 |
| 35–36 | 8.0 |
| 32–34 | 7.5 |
| 30–31 | 7.0 |
| 26–29 | 6.5 |
| 23–25 | 6.0 |
| 18–22 | 5.5 |
Academic Reading:
| Raw score | Band |
|---|---|
| 39–40 | 9.0 |
| 37–38 | 8.5 |
| 35–36 | 8.0 |
| 33–34 | 7.5 |
| 30–32 | 7.0 |
| 27–29 | 6.5 |
| 23–26 | 6.0 |
| 19–22 | 5.5 |
General Training Reading:
| Raw score | Band |
|---|---|
| 40 | 9.0 |
| 39 | 8.5 |
| 37–38 | 8.0 |
| 36 | 7.5 |
| 34–35 | 7.0 |
| 32–33 | 6.5 |
| 30–31 | 6.0 |
| 27–29 | 5.5 |
General Training Reading is not the easy version
Put the two Reading tables side by side and the gap is obvious:
| Target band | Academic | General Training | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Band 5.5 | 19 | 27 | 8 more |
| Band 6.0 | 23 | 30 | 7 more |
| Band 7.0 | 30 | 34 | 4 more |
| Band 9.0 | 39 | 40 | every question |
At Band 6.0, a General Training candidate needs seven more correct answers than an Academic candidate for the identical reported band. At Band 9, General Training allows no mistakes at all.
The texts themselves are more approachable on General Training — notices, adverts, workplace documents rather than journal extracts. The conversion is what compensates. Candidates who practise on Academic material and then sit General Training sometimes read their practice scores as better news than they are, for exactly this reason. The full picture of what else changes between the two is in Academic vs General Training.
Why the boundaries move between test versions
Each version of the test is calibrated separately. If a particular Reading paper turns out slightly harder than average, the boundary for a given band can shift by a mark or so to keep the band meaning the same thing across sittings.
This is why you should treat any conversion table, including the one above, as an approximation rather than a promise. Practising at 30/40 on Academic Reading puts you around Band 7 — but around is the honest word. Sitting consistently at 32 or 33 is what makes a 7 safe rather than hopeful.
From four skills to one overall band
Listening and Reading get converted as above. Writing and Speaking are marked against criteria instead of a raw count — how the writing band scale works covers that side.
Your overall band is then the average of the four skill bands, rounded to the nearest half band. The rounding is more generous than most people expect:
- An average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band. A 6.25 average is reported as 6.5.
- An average ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band. A 6.75 average is reported as 7.0.
That rounding rule is worth understanding before you decide which skill to push. If your four bands are 6.5, 6.5, 6.0 and 6.0, your average is 6.25 and you are reported as 6.5. Lifting one of those 6.0s to 6.5 gives an average of 6.375, which is still reported as 6.5 — no visible change on your result. Lifting both gives 6.5 exactly, and pushing one skill to 7.0 from there is what finally reports as 7.0.
The practical read: gains are lumpy. Some improvements show up on your certificate immediately, others bank quietly until a second skill catches up.
You can run your own numbers on the IELTS band score calculator, which includes all three conversion tables and does the averaging and rounding for you. If you want the wider context on what each band represents across all four skills, start with what every IELTS band level means.
What to do with this
The practical use of a conversion table is not scoring your practice tests. It is knowing your target raw score before you sit down.
“I need Band 7 in Reading” is abstract. “I need 30 out of 40 on Academic, and I currently get 26” is a number you can plan against — six more marks, which is usually two question types you keep losing rather than a general reading problem. Working out which two is the part worth doing next.