IELTS Speaking Band Descriptors Explained: What the Examiner Assesses
A breakdown of the four IELTS Speaking criteria: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation. What separates band 6, 7 and 8.
Four criteria, equal weight
The Speaking examiner assesses four things, each worth 25%: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation. Your final band is the average of the four, rounded to the nearest half band.
That means you do not need to be perfect in every criterion. An average of band 7 can come from 7, 7, 7, 7 or from 8, 7, 6, 7.
Fluency and Coherence
This is about how smoothly and logically you speak, not how fast.
| Band | Features |
|---|---|
| 6 | Can speak at length, but sometimes loses coherence through repetition, hesitation or self-correction |
| 7 | Speaks at length without noticeable effort; pauses are usually to think about content, not language |
| 8 | Fluent with almost no repetition; topics are developed coherently and appropriately |
How to move from 6 to 7: cut the um, uh and self-corrections. If you use the wrong word, keep going. Use natural linkers: actually, the thing is, what I mean is.
Lexical Resource
The range and precision of your vocabulary, including your ability to say something another way when the exact word does not come to mind.
| Band | Features |
|---|---|
| 6 | Enough vocabulary to discuss topics at length; can paraphrase, though not always precisely |
| 7 | Flexible vocabulary; uses idioms and collocations deliberately, occasionally inaccurately |
| 8 | Wide vocabulary, accurate idioms and collocations, effective paraphrasing |
How to move from 6 to 7: learn collocations, not single words. Heavy rain, not strong rain. Make a decision, not do a decision. One accurate idiom is worth more than five forced ones.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Two different things: range is the variety of structures, accuracy is correctness.
| Band | Features |
|---|---|
| 6 | A mix of simple and complex sentences; complex sentences often contain errors |
| 7 | A range of complex structures used flexibly; many error-free sentences |
| 8 | Wide range of structures; most sentences are error-free, mistakes are rare and unsystematic |
How to move from 6 to 7: master three structures first: conditionals (if I had more time, I would...), relative clauses (the city where I grew up) and the past perfect (by the time I arrived, the show had started). Use them until they are automatic.
Pronunciation
Not about accent. The examiner assesses whether you are easy to understand and whether you use features such as word stress, intonation and connected speech.
| Band | Features |
|---|---|
| 6 | Generally understandable; some pronunciation features used, but not consistently |
| 7 | All the positive features of band 6 and some of band 8 |
| 8 | Wide and flexible use of pronunciation features; easy to understand throughout |
How to move from 6 to 7: pay attention to word stress in long words (phoTOgraphy, not PHOtography) and raise and lower your intonation to mark emphasis.
How the Wono IELTS AI examiner assesses
Our AI follows these public descriptors criterion by criterion. Every recording produces a band for each criterion along with quotes from your answer as evidence. So if your Grammatical Range is a 6 while the rest are 7, you know exactly which structures to practise tomorrow.
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