IELTS Reading Band Score: How Your Score Is Calculated

The real band table and grading rules used on every one of the 20 real tests

Reading is graded instantly and fully locally — no Worker call, nothing subjective. Here’s exactly how a raw score out of 40 becomes a band, and exactly how each individual answer is checked.

The real band table — identical across all 20 tests

Correct (/40)   Band       Correct (/40)   Band
  39-40          9.0         19-22          5.5
  37-38          8.5         15-18          5.0
  35-36          8.0         13-14          4.5
  33-34          7.5         10-12          4.0
  30-32          7.0          8-9           3.5
  27-29          6.5          6-7           3.0
  23-26          6.0

This exact 13-row table is the same on all 20 real tests here — it’s the same conversion IELTS itself uses, applied to your raw score the moment you submit.

How a single answer gets checked

Before comparing your answer to the key, the platform lowercases it, trims the ends, strips out common punctuation like commas and periods, and collapses any extra spaces down to one. That means “Syr Darya”, “syr darya”, “Syr, Darya.”, and “Syr Darya” (with a stray double space) are all treated as the exact same answer.

What it does not do is guess at meaning — it only ever compares normalized text against the answer key, never anything looser than that.

No partial credit on a single answer

Each answer is checked as a whole, exact match against the key — there’s no credit for “close.” Test 11’s Question 9 asks what Soviet planners expanded cultivation of, and the key answer is “cotton.” Type “cotton” and it’s marked correct; type “cotton crop” or “cotton cultivation” and it’s marked wrong, even though a human reader would understand exactly what you meant.

That’s exactly why the word-limit and Completion tutorials keep repeating: answer with only what the blank needs, not the whole phrase around it.

Accepted alternates — written directly into the answer key

Key answer:  "purchasing power parity (also accept: \"PPP\")"
Accepted:    purchasing power parity  — OR —  PPP
Not matched: purchasing power  (partial phrase)

Some answer-key entries list a second acceptable wording in parentheses, and both count as fully correct — Test 1’s Question 27 accepts either “purchasing power parity” or “PPP”, and its Question 30 accepts either “climate” or “international climate.” But this is still an exact match against one of those listed variants, not a fuzzy match — a wording that isn’t one of the variants is marked wrong, however close it sounds.

The band table → how an answer is checked → no partial credit → accepted alternates, revealed in order

DEB

0:00 0:00

4 things to know about how Reading is scored here

How many raw-score bands does the band table have, and is it the same across all 20 tests?13 bands, and yes — the exact same table applies to every one of the 20 real tests.
Does capitalization or punctuation in your typed answer matter?No — answers are lowercased, trimmed, stripped of common punctuation, and have extra spaces collapsed before comparing.
If you type an answer that has the right idea but extra words, is it marked correct?No — grading is an exact match against the key, so an answer like "cotton crop" is marked wrong when the key answer is "cotton."
What does "(also accept: ...)" in an answer key entry mean?A second exact wording that also counts as correct — but only those listed wordings, not any paraphrase of them.

How your band score is actually calculated