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Page 1 of 2 How to Interpret Scores on the Sample General Training Reading Sections

How to Interpret Scores on the Sample General Training Reading Sections

IELTS General Training Reading papers contain 40 questions and each correct question isawarded one mark; the maximum raw score a candidate can achieve on a paper is 40. Bandscores ranging from Band 1 to Band 9 are awarded to candidates on the basis of their rawscores.

All IELTS test materials are pretested before being used in live tests but there are inevitablyminor differences in the difficulty level across the large number of tests administered eachyear. In order to equate different test versions, the band score boundaries are set so that allcandidates results relate to the same scale of achievement. This means, for example, thatthe Band 6 boundary may be set at slightly different raw scores across test versions.

Table 1 below indicates the average General Training Reading raw scores achieved bycandidates at Bands 4-7. It provides an indication of the number of marks typically required toachieve a particular band score.

Table 1: Average General Training Reading raw scores

Raw score out of 40 Band score

15 423 530 634 7

Within each General Training Reading paper, sections are targeted at different levels ofoverall difficulty. A useful indication of the relative difficulty of questions is the facility value:the proportion of candidates giving the correct answer to a question. Both sample Sections Aand B have appeared in live tests and thus the facility values of their questions can be judgedto be representative of the candidature as a whole. Table 2 below shows the average facilityof each section. These figures show that the candidates found sample Section B slightly moredifficult overall than sample Section A.

Table 2: Average facility of sample General Training Reading Sections

Sample GT Reading Section A 0.70

Sample GT Reading Section B 0.51

Although sample General Training Reading Section B proved more difficult overall, there is arange of questions at different levels of difficulty within both sample sections.

The question facility values in Tables 3 and 4 show the proportion of candidates whoanswered each question correctly: 68% of the candidates answered question 1 correctly onSample A, and 56% of the candidates answered question 1 correctly on Sample B.

Tables 3 and 4 also give an indication of the relative difficulty of the questions within each

sample section: the most difficult question in Sample A is question 2, while in Sample B themost difficult question is question 12.

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Page 2 of 2 How to Interpret Scores on the Sample General Training Reading Sections

Table 3: Sample A facili ty values

Question Facility1 0.682 0.393 0.904 0.775 0.856 0.877 0.908 0.699 0.6610 0.4511 0.6312 0.7213 0.5814 0.66

Table 4: Sample B facility values

Question Facility1 0.562 0.213 0.634 0.54

5 0.406 0.367 0.578 0.629 0.6610 0.7311 0.7312 0.1213 0.47

Table 5 below shows the number of questions on a typical General Training Reading sectionthat candidates at different IELTS bands would be expected to answer correctly.

Table 5: Expected number of correct answers on a typical General Training Reading section

Number of questions answered correctly(out o f 13 or 14)

Band

1-3 Up to Band 44-8 Between Bands 4 and 6

9-13/14 Above Band 6

Further examples of General Training Reading test material can be found in the IELTSSpecimen Materials pack. This contains a full copy of practice tests with answers for each ofthe six modules. Copies are available for purchase from Cambridge ESOL, IDP: IELTSAustralia and IELTS test centres. See www.ielts.org

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