"How many questions do I need to get right for band 7?" is the most-asked IELTS question — and one of the few with a fairly precise answer. Here is how each of the four skills turns into a band, and how the four bands become your overall score. (Prefer to just plug numbers in? Use the free IELTS band score calculator.)
Listening: raw score out of 40
Listening is 40 questions, 1 mark each, no negative marking, converted by a published table. The key midlines (Academic and General are identical for Listening):
- Band 9: 39-40 correct
- Band 8.5: 37-38
- Band 8: 35-36
- Band 7.5: 32-34
- Band 7: 30-31
- Band 6.5: 26-29
- Band 6: 23-25
- Band 5.5: 18-22
- Band 5: 16-17
Real test versions are equated by a mark or so either way for difficulty, so treat these as reliable midlines, not a contract.
Reading (Academic): also out of 40, tougher conversion
Academic Reading uses a slightly harsher table than Listening at the top end — typical midlines:
- Band 9: 39-40
- Band 8.5: 37-38
- Band 8: 35-36
- Band 7.5: 33-34
- Band 7: 30-32
- Band 6.5: 27-29
- Band 6: 23-26
- Band 5.5: 19-22
- Band 5: 15-18
(General Training Reading uses a different, more lenient table because its texts are easier.)
Writing and Speaking: four criteria, equally weighted
No conversion tables here — trained examiners grade you on four criteria, each 0-9, averaged:
- Writing: Task Achievement/Response, Coherence & Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range & Accuracy. Task 2 counts twice as much as Task 1 in the Writing band.
- Speaking: Fluency & Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range & Accuracy, Pronunciation.
The practical implication: your Writing band is capped by your weakest criterion cluster. A candidate with rich vocabulary but chaotic paragraphing gains more from fixing structure (Coherence) than from learning more words. This is why criterion-level feedback matters — Myndaq's AI scoring returns all four criteria on every essay and speaking response, so you always know which dial to turn.
The overall band: averaging and the rounding rule
Your overall band is the mean of the four skill bands, rounded to the nearest half band, with ties rounding UP:
- ends in .25 → rounds UP to .5
- ends in .75 → rounds UP to the next whole band
- ends in .125 or .375 → rounds DOWN/NEAREST as normal nearest-half rounding
Worked examples:
- L 6.5, R 6.5, W 6.0, S 7.0 → mean 6.5 → overall 6.5
- L 7.0, R 6.5, W 6.0, S 6.5 → mean 6.5 → overall 6.5
- L 6.5, R 6.0, W 6.0, S 6.5 → mean 6.25 → overall 6.5 (the friendly rule)
- L 8.0, R 7.5, W 6.5, S 7.0 → mean 7.25 → overall 7.5
- L 6.0, R 6.0, W 5.5, S 6.0 → mean 5.875 → overall 6.0
Strategic consequence: if you sit at a .25 mean, one extra half band in your strongest skill lifts the overall — often easier than dragging Writing up. Run your own scenarios in the calculator.
What this means for your prep
- Know your raw-score targets: chasing band 7 means training Listening to a stable 30+/40 and Reading to 30+/40 — measurable in every practice session.
- Writing is the most common bottleneck skill; it responds to criterion feedback, not volume alone.
- Score every full mock the official way (tables + criteria + rounding) so test day holds no arithmetic surprises. Full prep roadmap: IELTS Academic preparation guide.
Conversion figures are published midlines; individual test versions are equated slightly. Current as of July 2026.