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Well, the easy answer is if your speaking is good then you will get a higher mark. If your speaking is poor, then you will not get a high score in the exam.  Simple, but what does this mean?

What will affect your score? The key 3 things are…….

Pronunciation – If you have problems with r/l, b/v, s/sh t/th sounds in English (To name but a few!), then this will affect your pronunciation score. If you don’t  use intonation well, or word/sentence stress well, then this will also affect your score.

Errors/hesitation – If you make a lot of mistakes with vocabulary or you have to keep stopping so you can look for vocabulary in your head, then this will affect your score. In terms of grammar, if you struggle with the past, or more complex structures then the examiner will see this. If you don’t have articles (a/an/the) in your language, then you may be making a lot of mistakes with them.

Idea development – If the examiner keeps asking you “Why?”, then you are not developing your ideas sufficiently and this will affect your score.  If you say that you think something is true, you need to be able to say why you think so.

There is a lot that can affect your speaking score. Sometimes, native speakers make a complete mess of it because they don’t know what to do and don’t answer the questions fully. They tend to get Band 9.0 for pronunciation though!!

If you need to get a better score in your IELTS exam, ask an IELTS examiner here. You can message us anytime.

Good luck.