IELTS

The IELTS examination has become highly popular and statistics reveal that the international student community who opt for this examination is indeed growing larger day by day. Jointly managed by the University of Cambridge, The British council and IELTS Australia, the examination assesses the competency of a candidate in the four-language skills Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking.

This examination is designed for students who wish to study in an English -speaking country, for those who wish to get work experience in such countries and for those who wish to emigrate to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and England.

FORMATS

IELTS comes in two formats: Academic and General training. While the Academic version is for those who wish to sign up for undergraduate and post-graduate courses in English speaking nations, the general training version which assesses the survival skills of candidates is for those who wish to gain work experience, sign up for secondary education in such countries or want to emigrate.

MODULES

IELTS examination is divided in four modules. The tasks in each module get increasingly difficult as the module progresses.

LISTENING-READING-WRITING-and SPEAKING are the four modules

SCORE
IELTS gives a score for each of the four modules. The individual scores are averaged and rounded to give what is called an "overall Band score". The score band ranges from zero to nine. Score Band one reveals a "non user", a Band two "intermittent user" Band three" extremely limited user" Band four "limited user" and Band five "modest user," who is deemed to have partial command over the English language. A candidate who gets Band six is termed a competent user and a Band seven is a good user. A candidate with Band eight is a "very good user" who has only the occasional inaccuracy while dealing with English. Those with Band nine fall in the "expert user:" category- those who have full operational command over the language and have a complete understanding of the language.

To study a linguistically demanding course such as medicine, law, journalism and library studies, a score band of 7.5 to 9 is required. For linguistically demanding training programmes too -say air traffic control- a very high score is needed. On the other hand, for courses and training programmes that are not language intensive, a Band score of say 6.5 would be acceptable.

Examination Centers

TRIVANDRUM
January 8 Th and 15th
February 5th and 19th
March 5th and 12th
April 2nd and 9th

COCHIN
January 8th and 22nd
February 5th, 19th and 26th
March 5th 12th and 19th
April2nd9th and 16th