Mat Clark – IELTS Speaking
7
In the next section we will look in detail at the marking system of the IELTS
speaking test, but first it is important to think about the basic elements of scoring.
The IELTS speaking test is a test for your spoken English language ability.
Most people either don't know this or they don't understand the importance of this
fact. Many candidates seem to focus in the wrong way. Because the speaking test is based
on a ―question – answer‖ format, many people focus far too much on ―answering‖ the
questions.
Obviously, candidates are required to answer the question, but what they may not
realize is that the examiner doesn't give marks for the actual answer. The marks are given
for the ―language content‖ of the answer – not the answer itself. It is possible to answer
every question ―correctly‖ and still get a low score (4 or 5).
The examiner is not asking questions because he/she needs answer. There are no
correct or incorrect answers in the speaking test.
There are two basic types of answer:
