How the Speaking test works
The test lasts 11 to 14 minutes, face to face with an examiner, and it is recorded.
- Part 1 (4 to 5 minutes): familiar questions about your home, studies, work, hobbies and daily life.
- Part 2 (3 to 4 minutes): you receive a cue card, get one minute to prepare, and then speak for up to two minutes. The examiner may ask a short follow-up question.
- Part 3 (4 to 5 minutes): a discussion of more abstract questions linked to the Part 2 topic.
You are marked on four criteria: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation.
Fluency or accuracy?
Many candidates speak slowly and carefully to avoid mistakes, then lose marks for fluency. Others speak fast and lose marks for accuracy. You need both, but in practice:
- Part 1: answer in two or three sentences. Add a reason or an example, then stop.
- Part 2: keep talking for the full two minutes. A small grammar slip costs less than a long silence.
- Part 3: slow down a little and develop your ideas: give a view, explain it, add an example, consider another side.
Pronunciation points for Jharkhand speakers
Pronunciation is about being easy to understand, not about sounding British. These are points that speakers of Hindi and Jharkhand's local languages commonly work on:
- v and w: many speakers use one sound for both. Practise "west" versus "vest" and "wine" versus "vine".
- Extra vowels before s-clusters: "school" becoming "is-school", or "station" becoming "is-tation". Start directly on the "s".
- z and j: "zero" and "jero", "visit" with a clear "z" sound.
- s and sh: some speakers in eastern India merge these. Contrast "sip" and "ship", "same" and "shame".
- th sounds: "think" and "this" are often said as a t or d. Being consistent and clear matters more than perfection here.
- Word stress: English depends on stressing the right syllable: phoTOgraphy, deVELopment, ecoNOMic. Wrong stress makes correct words hard to catch.
- Sentence intonation: a flat delivery can sound uninterested. Let your voice rise and fall to show what matters.
Work on one or two at a time. Trying to fix everything at once usually makes speech slower and less natural.
Ranchi gives you good Part 2 material
Cue cards often ask about a place you like, a festival, a journey or a person who helped you. Ranchi gives you plenty to say:
- the waterfalls around the city such as Hundru and Dassam, especially in the monsoon;
- festivals like Sarhul and Karma, as well as Durga Puja and Chhath;
- an evening at Ranchi Lake or the hills at Tagore Hill;
- a busy day on Main Road or at a weekly haat.
Practise turning these into two-minute stories with a beginning, some detail and a reflection at the end. Personal, specific answers are easier to speak about fluently than general ones.
Practising when you have no partner
Most Ranchi students do not have an English-speaking partner at home. IELTS Speaking practice can still be productive on your own:
- Use the real timers. IELTS Learning has 186 prompts for Parts 1, 2 and 3, with a genuine one-minute preparation timer and a two-minute speaking timer for cue cards.
- Read your transcript. After you answer, you get AI feedback on the transcript. Look for repeated words, unfinished sentences and fillers.
- Record and listen back. Note the sounds from the pronunciation list that you hear yourself slip on.
- Answer the same cue card twice. The second attempt, after feedback, is where you improve.
- Shadow good speech. Repeat short sections of the British recordings in the Listening sets to copy rhythm and stress.
Teacher sessions for the real thing
Nothing replaces speaking to a person who is listening carefully. With Book a Teacher, you get about 20 minutes one-to-one online with an IELTS teacher, from ₹299. Use it for a full mock Speaking test, or for focused work on Part 3 or pronunciation.
A practical rhythm is daily practice on the platform with transcript feedback, and a teacher session every one or two weeks to check progress. The Study Notes chapter on Speaking and the free Daily Vocabulary help you build topic language.
Full Access is ₹999 for 2 months, paid once; teacher sessions are booked separately. Create your free account and start your IELTS Speaking practice in Ranchi with one cue card today.