IELTS Academic or General Training: which one do you need?
Take IELTS Academic for university study or professional registration, and IELTS General Training for migration, work experience or non-academic training. Listening and Speaking are identical; Reading and Writing differ. The deciding fact is not ours to give: ask the university, employer or immigration body which version it accepts. (Source: ielts.org, checked 6 October 2026.) What is different Reading — Academic uses three long texts taken from books, journals and newspapers; General Training uses shorter everyday and workplace texts and one longer general text. Writing Task 1 — Academic asks you to describe a graph, table, chart or diagram in at least 150 words; General Training asks you to write a letter, also at least 150 words. Writing Task 2 — an essay of at least 250 words in both versions. What is the same The 0 to 9 band scale, the Listening test and the Speaking interview are the same in both, so the preparation for those two parts does not change with the version. Next: the IELTS test format or the IELTS preparation page .
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