We all know the torture of waiting to receive your results from a test, especially ones that can impact your future career. If you’ve ever taken the IELTS speaking test before, you will know that the test is not marked immediately and there are a few important reasons why.
The IELTS speaking tests are not marked immediately because there are many different aspects to consider evaluating a speaker’s ability that requires the examiner’s full attention when marking the speaking test:
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy
- Fluency and Coherence
- Lexical Resource
- Pronunciation
In addition to this information, we can see exactly what has to be taken into consideration when the examiner has the task of marking your IELTS speaking test.
Why Is the IELTS Speaking Test Not Marked Immediately?
The IELTS speaking test is not marked immediately, or during, because the examiner’s full attention throughout your performance must be focused on you so that you have the same opportunity as every other IELTS student.
The only notes the examiner may take during your performance is to make sure that they are keeping track of the time of each section of your speaking test. So, if you see the examiner writing down a number; don’t let this throw you off.
But when it comes to what you should be aiming for when it comes to your test, here are a few things that you should know:
What Does the IELTS Examiner Need to Focus on When marking?
When the examiner is evaluating your speaking test, the mark they can give you is based on what they can hear. They are not allowed to make assumptions about what you mean, so make sure that when you are doing your speaking test say everything that you need to say.
Here are the main aspects the examiner will evaluate you on:
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Your examiner during the speaking test will be listening for three specific things when it comes to grammar; mistakes, can you use grammar flexibly, and do you use simple or more complex sentence structures when speaking.
Fluency and Coherence
You must speak smoothly and naturally during the IELTS speaking test to impress your examiner. When the examiner marks you on fluency, they are looking for your accuracy and expression when speaking.
A big mistake people make is thinking that fluency means that you can speak fast. No, You aim to sound confident and natural and speak with minimal hesitation and repetition.
When looking for coherence, this is when the examiner listens to how well you can relate your words to the topic you are talking about. This allows the examiner to identify if you know what you are talking about by seeing if your speech is consistent and logical.
Lexical Resource
This is testing your vocabulary, and in the IELTS speaking test, we need to have both quantity and quality when it comes to using your words. For this section, the examiners will be looking for you to use idioms and collocations and pay attention to any word choice mistakes.
Pronunciation
This is one of the most noticeable parts of any test; how well we can say the words. There are three things that you will need to pay attention to try and impress your examiner; you need to be easy to understand, you need to have a good range of pronunciation features, and then you need to be good at controlling those pronunciation features.
Some pronunciation features are how you pronounce your vowels and consonants, sentence stress, word stress, and control of the individual sounds.
Remember that having an accent does not affect your scoring, but how you can make yourself understood by controlling the English language is what will determine your score based on pronunciation. So, to be natural, not everyone needs to sound American or British.
To best understand why the IELTS speaking test isn’t marked immediately is because the examiner needs to consider the way the test is scored.
Also Read: What If You Answer Wrong in IELTS Speaking?
How is the IELTS Speaking Test Scored?
The IELTS speaking test is scored in different bands to let you know what your speaking ability is. In total, there are nine bands in the IELTS speaking test:
- Band 9 – This is the highest level you can achieve in IELTS and shows that you speak fluently, with little to no mistakes in your speech, use a wide range of vocabulary, are flexible and have control with using grammar and are easy to understand.
- Band 8 – This level shows that you are fluent in your speech and only make the occasional mistake, you have a wide range of vocabulary and grammar.
- Band 7 – A student at this level is fluent but the deciding factors are that you show a lack of effort when it comes to speaking at length but you can paraphrase. For this level, mistakes, hesitations, and repetitions are made, but you can speak on many different topics.
- Band 6 – At this level, you are able to talk at length, have a good range of vocabulary and use a mixture of simple and complex sentences, but your coherence is lost due to repetition of words, hesitating, and often self-correcting while speaking.
- Band 5 – When you are at this level you are able to keep a consistent flow when you are speaking but you depend on repetition, a slow pace, and self-correction to be able to speak at length. You are able to talk about familiar and unfamiliar topics, but with a limited vocabulary.
- Band 4 – You’re considered at this level when you are able to talk about familiar topics and use simple sentence structures, but you cannot speak without making notable hesitations, self-corrections, and speaking very slowly. Band four students also make frequent pronunciation mistakes.
- Band 3 – At this level, you can communicate by using simple responses, memorized words, and a few utterances. You have long pauses between words but are able to start linking simple sentences.
- Band 2 – When you reach this level, you are able to communicate a small amount but only through using a few memorized words and long pauses. Your pronunciation at this level is impossible to understand.
- Band 1 – This level means that you are unable to communicate at all in English.
- Band 0 – This means that you did not attend the test and have been awarded zero
Check out the blog to know more about how IELTS scores are calculated.
The IELTS Speaking Test is not marked immediately for many reasons; all of them benefit us during the test. So, as much as we would want our marks to be released as soon as possible, the test is not marked immediately to make sure the examiner’s full attention is on us, to give us the best opportunity to be heard, and to make sure the examiner can listen to everything that they need to hear to make sure we get the most accurate mark for the speaking test as possible.
