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IELTS Question Bank: All Four Sections

Lume Test

Published on: September 4, 2026

This bank holds practice items for all four IELTS sections in the real formats. Listening items are given as transcripts so they work without audio, and every answer key gives the reason rather than just the letter.

Use the coverage table at the top to find the task types you have not practised. Gaps in task-type coverage cost more marks than gaps in topic knowledge.

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Key Takeaways

IELTS Academic has 40 Listening questions, 40 Reading questions, 2 Writing tasks and 3 Speaking parts.
Reading uses eleven question types; practising only two or three of them leaves predictable gaps.
Work items under time from the start — untimed accuracy overstates your band by a wide margin.
Log every error by cause: knowledge, technique, word limit, or time.
Redo wrong items after 48 hours, not immediately.

Task-type coverage checklist

Section	Task type	In this bank
Listening	Form completion	Yes — item set 1
Listening	Matching	Yes — item set 2
Listening	Multiple choice	Yes — item set 2
Listening	Note completion	Yes — item set 3
Reading	True/False/Not Given	Yes — item set 4
Reading	Matching headings	Yes — item set 5
Reading	Sentence completion	Yes — item set 4
Reading	Matching features	Yes — item set 5
Writing	Task 1 chart description	Yes — prompt bank
Writing	Task 2, five question types	Yes — prompt bank
Speaking	Parts 1, 2 and 3	Yes — prompt bank

Item set 1: Listening form completion

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Transcript

Clerk: Riverside Storage, good afternoon.

Caller: Hello, I need a unit for about three months. What sizes do you have?

Clerk: Small is twenty-five square feet, medium is fifty, large is a hundred. Small is thirty-eight a month, medium fifty-two, large ninety.

Caller: I have the contents of a one-bedroom flat.

Clerk: Medium then. Large is more than you need unless there are large appliances.

Caller: No appliances. Is there a deposit?

Clerk: One month, refundable. And access is included — six in the morning until ten at night, seven days.

Caller: Can I get in at night?

Clerk: Twenty-four hour access is an extra twelve pounds a month.

Caller: Not worth it. My name is Teodor Vasquez — V-A-S-Q-U-E-Z.

Clerk: And a contact number?

Caller: 07811 400 275. Sorry, 400 257.

Q	Field	Answer	Trap
1	Surname	Vasquez	Vasquez / Vazquez confusion; it was spelled
2	Unit size chosen	medium	Large is mentioned first as an option
3	Monthly cost (pounds)	52	38 and 90 both stated
4	Deposit	one month	—
5	Standard access hours	6 am to 10 pm	—
6	Cost of 24-hour access (pounds)	12	Not taken, but still asked
7	Phone number	07811 400 257	Self-correction — 275 was the first version

Item set 2: Listening matching and multiple choice

Transcript (monologue)

“Thank you for joining the orientation for our four evening courses. Photography runs Mondays and needs no equipment — we lend cameras, though most people bring a phone. Ceramics is Tuesdays; there is a materials fee of eighteen pounds, which is the only course with one. Creative writing runs Wednesdays and is the only course where you must submit work in advance to be accepted. Woodwork is Thursdays, and it is the one course with a hard cap on numbers — eight people, because of bench space. Photography and creative writing both run for ten weeks; ceramics and woodwork run for eight. Only ceramics offers a second term automatically.”

Match each course to its feature. Write A-D. A = Photography, B = Ceramics, C = Creative writing, D = Woodwork

Q	Feature	Answer
8	Requires a materials payment	B
9	Requires submitted work before acceptance	C
10	Limits places for practical reasons	D
11	Provides equipment for participants	A

Choose the correct letter.

Q	Question	Options	Answer	Reason
12	Which courses last ten weeks?	(A) Photography and ceramics (B) Photography and creative writing (C) Ceramics and woodwork	B	Stated directly; A pairs one from each group
13	Which course continues into a second term without reapplication?	(A) Photography (B) Ceramics (C) Woodwork	B	“Only ceramics offers a second term automatically”

Item set 3: Listening note completion

Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

Transcript (lecture extract)

“Coastal salt marsh sits between land and sea, flooded by the tide and drained again twice a day. Three functions matter here. First, attenuation: the vegetation slows incoming waves, and the energy reaching the sea wall behind is measurably reduced. Second, accretion — the marsh traps sediment from the water, so it gains height over time and can, in principle, keep pace with sea-level rise. Whether it does depends on the sediment supply, which in many estuaries has fallen because rivers upstream have been dammed. Third, storage: salt marsh holds carbon in waterlogged soils where decomposition is slow. The important qualification is that this only continues while the marsh remains wet; drained marsh releases it. The main threat is coastal squeeze — the marsh would migrate landward as the sea rises, but a sea wall prevents it, so the marsh is compressed against the wall and eventually lost.”

Q	Note	Answer
14	Function 1: vegetation slows waves, reducing wave ___	energy
15	Function 2: marsh traps ___ from the water and gains height	sediment
16	Accretion depends on supply, which has fallen where rivers are ___	dammed
17	Function 3: carbon is held in ___ soils	waterlogged
18	Carbon is released if the marsh is ___	drained
19	Main threat: coastal ___	squeeze

Item set 4: Reading True/False/Not Given and sentence completion

Public libraries in many countries have been reclassified in local government accounts from cultural services to community infrastructure. The change is administrative but not trivial: infrastructure budgets are protected in a way that cultural budgets are not, and several authorities that had scheduled branch closures reversed them within two years of the reclassification. Whether the reclassification caused the reversals is contested. Library use itself continued to change: book lending fell across the decade while computer use, study space bookings and attendance at organised sessions rose. One consequence is that the traditional measure of a library’s value — items issued — now understates its use, and authorities that still report only issues are reporting decline in services that are busier than before.

Q	Statement	Answer	Reason
20	Infrastructure budgets receive more protection than cultural budgets.	TRUE	“protected in a way that cultural budgets are not”
21	The reclassification caused branch closures to be reversed.	NOT GIVEN	“Whether the reclassification caused the reversals is contested”
22	Book lending increased over the decade.	FALSE	“book lending fell across the decade”
23	Items issued is now an inadequate measure of library use.	TRUE	“now understates its use”

Complete the sentences with NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

Q	Sentence	Answer
24	Libraries were moved from cultural services to community ___.	infrastructure
25	Alongside computer use, ___ bookings rose.	study space

Question 21 is the model Not Given. The passage names the possible causal link and then explicitly declines to confirm it, which is different both from asserting it and from denying it.

Item set 5: Reading matching headings and matching features

A. Rainwater harvesting is old technology with a new justification. Cisterns are found in Bronze Age settlements; what has changed is the reason for building them, which is now as much about reducing peak flow into drains as about supplying water.

B. The engineering is undemanding at household scale. A roof, a downpipe, a filter and a tank will supply garden irrigation and toilet flushing, which together account for a substantial share of household demand. Potable use requires treatment and is rarely worth the cost where mains water is reliable.

C. At neighbourhood scale the calculation changes. Shared tanks achieve better economies and can be sized against storm events rather than household demand, which is what delivers the drainage benefit. The obstacle is not technical but organisational: someone must own and maintain the shared asset.

D. Uptake correlates poorly with rainfall and strongly with water pricing. Cities with abundant rain and cheap water install little; cities with metered volumetric charging install a great deal regardless of climate. This is unsurprising to economists and consistently surprising to engineers.

Matching headings. i — Why price matters more than climate · ii — A familiar technology with a changed purpose · iii — The history of urban water supply · iv — Simple at the scale of one house · v — Where ownership becomes the problem · vi — Treatment standards for drinking water

Q	Paragraph	Answer	Why
26	A	ii	Old technology, new justification
27	B	iv	Household-scale simplicity
28	C	v	“The obstacle is not technical but organisational”
29	D	i	Correlates with pricing, not rainfall

Headings iii and vi are unused. Both share vocabulary with the passage — water supply, drinking water treatment — while naming something the paragraphs do not do.

Writing prompt bank

Task	Prompt	Type
1	The bar chart shows household recycling rates in five countries in 2010 and 2020.	Comparison over time
1	The diagram shows the process by which glass bottles are recycled.	Process
1	The two maps show a coastal village in 1990 and today.	Map change
1	The table shows average weekly hours spent on leisure activities by age group.	Table
2	Governments should invest in public transport rather than new roads. To what extent do you agree?	Opinion
2	Some believe examinations measure ability poorly; others defend them. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.	Discussion
2	Do the advantages of remote working outweigh the disadvantages?	Advantages and disadvantages
2	What problems does urban air pollution cause, and how could cities address them?	Problem and solution
2	Why do people move to large cities, and what effect does this have on rural areas?	Two-part question

Speaking prompt bank

Part	Prompts
1	Do you work or study? What do you do in your free time? How do you travel to work? Do you enjoy cooking? How much time do you spend on your phone?
2	Describe a person who influenced your working life. Describe a place that surprised you. Describe something you have owned for a long time. Describe a decision you found difficult. Describe a skill you would like to learn.
3	Do people change jobs more than they used to? Should cities restrict private cars? Why do some students perform better than others with the same teaching? Has technology made people less social? Should university education be free?

Error log format

Column	Record	Why
Section and task type	e.g. Reading, matching headings	Shows which task types are untrained
Cause	Knowledge / technique / word limit / time	Each needs a different fix
Specific rule broken	e.g. chose a heading by shared vocabulary	Turns one error into a category
Redo after 48 hours	Right or wrong	Separates understanding from recall

If most errors are…	Study
Word limit or spelling	Nothing new — read instructions and check answers before moving on
Unattempted questions	Timing: cap Passage 1 at 17 minutes and Passage 2 at 20
One task type only	That task type, exclusively, for a week
Spread evenly across everything	Vocabulary coverage, not technique
Not Given items	The absent-versus-denied distinction, with 20 items in a row

The cause column is what changes your plan. Word-limit errors and unattempted questions are not knowledge problems, and studying more grammar or vocabulary will not touch either of them.

FAQ

Can I practise IELTS Listening without audio?

Partly. Transcripts train the technique that carries most of the marks — predicting answer types, reading options before items, tracking who says what in Part 3, following note headings in Part 4. They cannot train processing speed at the recording’s pace, so use audio alongside them.

How many questions are in the IELTS test?

Forty in Listening and forty in Academic Reading, each worth one mark, plus two Writing tasks and three Speaking parts assessed against four criteria each.

Should I practise by section or take full tests?

By section and task type while you are learning, then full timed sections from about three weeks out. Task-type gaps cost more marks than anything else, and full tests are an inefficient way to find them.

When should I redo questions I got wrong?

After at least 48 hours. Redoing them immediately tests whether you remember the answer rather than whether you can apply the rule, and it consistently overstates progress.

Why do I score well in practice and worse in the real test?

Almost always timing. Untimed practice removes the constraint that produces most real errors, particularly unattempted Reading questions in Passage 3. Time every set from the start, including the answer-transfer time in Reading.

Which Reading task types should I prioritise?

The order-independent ones — matching headings, matching information, matching features — because they are the least intuitive and the most technique-dependent, and Not Given items, because the absent-versus-denied distinction is where most candidates lose several marks in a single set.

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