When you finish a Cambridge practice test and mark it, you get a number out of 40. That number is your raw score. IELTS never reports raw scores on a Test Report Form; it converts them to a band from 0 to 9, in whole and half bands. Knowing exactly how that conversion works tells you how many more correct answers you need to reach your target, which is a far more useful goal than “improve my reading”.
Every question is worth one mark
IELTS Listening and Reading each have 40 questions, and each correct answer earns one mark. There is no negative marking, so a blank answer and a wrong answer cost the same. That has a practical consequence: never leave an answer blank. If you run out of time on a True/False/Not Given set, a guess has roughly a one-in-three chance of being right; a blank has none.
Some questions ask you to choose two options, such as “Choose TWO letters, A–E”. In the official tests, and in Cambridge books, each correct letter is usually one mark, so a pair of questions like 11 and 12 is worth two marks and the letters can be written in either order. The HighTargets answer keys show these as “11 & 12” and count them as two marks in the score tool.
Listening: raw score to band
Listening is the same test for Academic and General Training candidates, so it uses one conversion table. The table below is the one IELTS publishes as a guide to the typical conversion:
| Raw score (out of 40) | 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 |
| 16–17 | 5.0 |
| 13–15 | 4.5 |
| 10–12 | 4.0 |
Look at how uneven the ranges are. The whole of Band 5.5 is five raw marks wide (18–22), but Band 7.5 is only three marks wide (32–34) and Band 8.5 is two. The higher you go, the fewer mistakes you can afford.
Academic Reading: raw score to band
| Raw score (out of 40) | 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 |
| 15–18 | 5.0 |
| 13–14 | 4.5 |
| 10–12 | 4.0 |
Academic Reading is slightly more generous than Listening in the middle of the scale. For example, 30 correct is Band 7.0 in both, but 32 correct is still Band 7.0 in Academic Reading while it is already Band 7.5 in Listening.
General Training Reading: raw score to band
General Training Reading uses easier texts, so it needs more correct answers for the same band:
| Raw score (out of 40) | 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 |
| 23–26 | 5.0 |
| 19–22 | 4.5 |
| 15–18 | 4.0 |
A score of 30 in General Training Reading is Band 6.0; the same 30 in Academic Reading is Band 7.0. If you are practising with an Academic test but will sit General Training, or the other way round, use the correct table or your estimate will be a full band out.
Why these tables are “approximate”
Each real IELTS test version is statistically checked, and the exact raw-score boundaries can move by a mark or so between versions to keep bands equally difficult to achieve. That is why the Cambridge books and IELTS itself describe their tables as a guide. Treat the band you calculate from a practice test as an estimate within about half a band, not as a prediction of your exact result.
It is also why one test is not enough. Your average over three or four full practice tests is a much more reliable picture than a single score.
How the overall band is calculated
Your overall band is the average of your four section bands (Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking), rounded to the nearest whole or half band. The rounding rule is specific:
- If the average ends in .25, it rounds up to the next half band (6.25 becomes 6.5).
- If the average ends in .75, it rounds up to the next whole band (6.75 becomes 7.0).
- Anything below those points rounds down (6.1 becomes 6.0; 6.6 becomes 6.5).
Two worked examples:
- Listening 6.5, Reading 6.5, Writing 5.0, Speaking 7.0. Total 25.0, average 6.25, overall 6.5.
- Listening 7.0, Reading 6.5, Writing 6.0, Speaking 6.0. Total 25.5, average 6.375, overall 6.5.
A single extra half band in Listening or Reading can therefore lift your overall score. Because those two sections are marked objectively, they are usually the fastest place to gain it.
Turning a target band into a target score
Work backwards from your goal. If a university asks for 6.5 overall with no section below 6.0, you need at least 23 in Listening and 23 in Academic Reading just to meet the section minimum, and around 26–27 to give yourself a 6.5 in each. On a practice test, that means you can afford about 13 wrong answers, not 17.
That is a much more concrete target. When you mark a test with one of our answer keys, turn on Score my test to get your raw score and the matching band from the tables above. Then read how to review a practice test to work out which of your wrong answers were the easiest to fix.