IELTS, TOEFL & PTE

Which test, and why it matters

All three prove the same thing to a university, and they do not suit the same people. IELTS is the most widely accepted and the only one with a face-to-face speaking option. PTE is fully computer-marked, which suits candidates who find a human examiner stressful and want a result quickly. TOEFL is strongest for the United States and is accepted by more than 11,000 institutions across 150 countries.

Before you book anything, check what your target universities and your destination's immigration authority accept. They are not always the same list — the Duolingo English Test, for instance, is accepted for admission by many universities and not accepted for several visa routes.

IELTS

Two versions: Academic, for undergraduate and postgraduate study, and General Training, for work experience, training programmes and migration. Four sections, each scored 0 to 9 in half bands, with the overall band the average of the four rounded to the nearest half. There is no pass or fail.

• Listening — about 30 minutes, 40 questions across four recorded monologues and conversations
• Reading — 60 minutes, 40 questions across three long passages
• Writing — 60 minutes. Task 1 describes information in at least 150 words; Task 2 is an essay of at least 250
• Speaking — 11 to 14 minutes, in three parts: interview, a long turn with a minute to prepare, and a discussion

PTE Academic

Computer-based and computer-marked from end to end, which is why results usually arrive within a few business days rather than weeks. Scored on the Global Scale of English, 10 to 90. Speaking is recorded against a microphone rather than spoken to a person.

• Speaking and Writing — 77 to 93 minutes: read aloud, repeat sentence, describe image, re-tell lecture, short answer, summarise written text
• Reading — about 32 to 41 minutes: multiple choice, re-order paragraphs, fill in the blanks
• Listening — about 45 to 57 minutes: summarise spoken text, highlight correct summary, select missing word, highlight incorrect words, write from dictation

TOEFL iBT

• Reading — 3 to 4 passages, 12 to 14 questions each
• Listening — lectures and conversations, 6 questions after each
• Speaking — four tasks, with short preparation windows of 15 to 30 seconds
• Writing — two tasks

How we teach it

Small batches, online or in the classroom, with a free demo class before you commit to anything. The teaching is strategy first: what the examiner is actually marking, where the marks are lost, and how to spend the minutes you have. Then timed practice under real conditions, because a score is as much about pacing as about English.

Students taking a package with us get test preparation folded into the same timeline as the applications, so the score arrives before the deadline rather than after it.

Questions we are actually asked