IELTS Speaking, for the Academic candidate.
The Speaking test is identical in both versions of IELTS: the same examiner, the same three parts, the same criteria, the same band scale. What differs is you. Academic candidates arrive with essay grammar that Part 3 rewards, and a formality that Part 1 punishes. This page is the map.
Why this page exists. Candidates booked on Academic routinely ask where the Academic Speaking test is. There is not one. But the route you are on does change what you should practise, and that is worth a page.
There is no separate Academic Speaking test.
Whichever test you booked, the interview you sit is the same interview.
Same room, same examiner
Three parts · 11 to 14 minutes
A face-to-face interview: Part 1 on familiar topics, the Part 2 long turn from a cue card, and the Part 3 discussion. Identical on both routes.
The examiner does not know or care which Reading paper you sat that morning.
Same four criteria
FC · LR · GRA · Pronunciation
Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, Pronunciation. A quarter of the mark each, on both routes.
One marksheet exists. It has no Academic column.
Same band scale
A 7 is a 7
Speaking bands mean the same thing on both routes, so any Speaking resource on this site serves you, whichever test you booked.
The myth of a harder Academic interview survives because everything around it, Reading and Writing, really does differ.
Part 3 is a seminar, and you have been training for it.
The register that Academic Writing Task 2 demands is the register Part 3 rewards.
If you have prepared for the essay, you have been rehearsing Part 3 without noticing: weighing two sides, conceding a point before countering it, speculating about causes and consequences. The grammar is the same kit. Hedged claims with modal verbs (it may well, this might partly explain), conditionals for hypotheticals (if universities charged nothing, demand would treble), and precise comparison for trends. Deploy it deliberately in Part 3, where abstract discussion is the whole game, and the interview starts working in your favour.
Part 1 punishes the register Part 3 rewards.
The most common Academic-candidate error is sounding like an essay in the first four minutes.
Part 1 asks about your home, your work, your weekends. It wants natural, extended, everyday English. Candidates who have drilled academic phrases often reach for them here, and the examiner hears it at once: a memorised register in the wrong room reads as rehearsed, and rehearsed language cannot demonstrate fluency. Answer Part 1 like a person, not a paper: a direct answer, a detail, a reason. Save the seminar voice for Part 3, where it belongs. The Speaking guide shows the same answer graded across bands, part by part.
The resources, and how an Academic candidate should use them.
One test means one set of resources. Here is the Academic-route order of attack.
The Speaking guide
The three-part structure with the same answers shown at Band 6, 7 and 8+. Read the Part 3 models closely: that register is your target.
Start here if the format is new to you.
Topics and practice
Part 1, 2 and 3 question banks with a practice generator. Weight your practice towards Part 3 sets: it is where your preparation pays.
Ten minutes a day on Part 3 questions beats an hour of Part 1 small talk.
Part 2 cue cards
Thirty-six cards with Band 6 and Band 8 model long turns. The cards are everyday by design; your study life is legitimate material for them.
Describe a place you go to concentrate is an open door for a library story.
A second pair of ears
When you want your actual speaking heard and marked against the criteria, that is a lesson: one to one, with a written report after every session.
The free resources take you a long way. A person tells you what they cannot.