The short answer
There are 13 question types, spread across reading, listening, writing and speaking. Several are graded for more than one skill at once, which is why the test is shorter than the number of tasks suggests — and why a weakness in one skill shows up in more than one place on your score report.
What follows is each task, what it is actually measuring, and the mistake that costs the most marks on it. These come from maintaining a practice bank of 481 questions across these formats, so they describe where people genuinely lose marks rather than restating the instructions.
Reading
| Task | What it measures | The costly mistake | In our bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read & Select | Whether you know a word on sight, with no context to help you. | Hesitating. The list is short and the clock is unforgiving; a word you have to think about is usually one you do not know. | 30 |
| Fill in the Blanks | Spelling and word-formation, from partial letters and the sense of the sentence. | Filling the gap with a word that fits the meaning but not the letters already shown. | 60 |
| Read & Complete | Reading a whole passage well enough to restore missing words. | Working word by word. The passage decides the answer, so read it through before filling anything. | 35 |
| Interactive Reading | Sustained comprehension across several linked tasks on one passage. | Spending the time budget on the first task and rushing the ones that carry more weight. | 23 |
Not sure where you are starting from? Four questions, about two minutes, no sign-up — and you get an estimated score out of 160 to measure the rest of this against.
Listening
| Task | What it measures | The costly mistake | In our bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listen & Type | Hearing a sentence accurately and writing it down exactly. | Typing while listening on the first play. Listen, then type — a half-caught sentence is worse than none. | 30 |
| Interactive Listening | Following a conversation and answering about what was actually said. | Answering from what is plausible rather than from what was stated. | 50 |
Listening tasks are the ones most affected by your equipment, and a headset with an open microphone picks up room noise on the speaking tasks too. Test both before the day, not on it.
Writing
| Task | What it measures | The costly mistake | In our bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Write About The Photo | Producing accurate written description quickly, with no preparation time. | One long sentence. Several accurate sentences show more range and carry less risk. | 53 |
| Interactive Writing | Developing a written response and then extending it on a follow-up. | Saying everything in the first part, leaving nothing to develop in the second. | 30 |
| Writing Sample | Longer, structured writing on a prompt — the closest thing to an essay. | Writing to the word count instead of to the question. | 30 |
Speaking
| Task | What it measures | The costly mistake | In our bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read, Then Speak | Reading a prompt and speaking about it for a sustained stretch. | Running out of things to say at the halfway mark and then stopping. | 50 |
| Speak About The Photo | Spontaneous spoken description, with very little thinking time. | Long silences while searching for the exact word. Describe around it and continue. | 30 |
| Interactive Speaking | Answering a sequence of spoken questions across two topics. | Treating each question as isolated and giving one-sentence answers. | 30 |
| Speaking Sample | An extended spoken response, recorded and sent to institutions. | Forgetting that this one is heard by admissions staff, not only graded. It is a sample of you. | 30 |
Which of these to practise first
Not all thirteen are worth equal time. The ones that produce language — the writing and speaking tasks — feed the Production subscore, which is the one most often set as a separate minimum and the one most often sitting below a candidate’s overall score.
- If you have a month: work through every type once to find your weakest, then spend the rest of the time on the two or three that produce language.
- If you have a week: ignore the recognition tasks. Read & Select will not move in a week; fluency under a clock might.
- If you have two days: sit one full mock, fix the single habit it exposes, and sleep properly. Cramming vocabulary the night before is the least valuable thing available to you.
A note on timing
Every task is timed, and the timing is part of what is being tested. Practising without a clock builds a skill you cannot use on the day. The first untimed run is useful for understanding a format; every run after that should be under the real constraint.