Why is my answer incorrect?

In the IELTS Listening and Reading tests, there are some question types where you have to write words or numbers as your answer. For these question types, IELTS can be quite strict about accepted answers. For each question, there will be a list of accepted answers. If your answer is not on the list, it is not correct.

The reasons why answers are usually incorrect are:

• Your answer is incorrect: you got the wrong answer!
• Your answer is spelled incorrectly: spelling is important in Listening (and also in Reading, but you should just copy from the text).
• Your answer does not include all the necessary words: this is becoming less of a common reason as the IELTS test is increasingly using ONE WORD answers.
• Your answer goes over the word limit: read the instructions of the question carefully.
• Your answer includes redundant words: you wrote words which are already mentioned in the question
• Your answer is not directly taken from the audio/text: you must write exactly what you hear or read, don't change the form of the word, and don't combine words from different parts of the audio/text.
• Your answer is in a format which is unnatural in English: if your answer doesn't look natural in English, it won't be considered correct.
• Your answer does not fit grammatically: it needs to make sense in the question

If you believe our system has marked you unfairly in a mock test or practice, take a screenshot and then type 'my answer is incorrect' into the chatbot. You can then paste the screenshot and URL (web address) of the page into the chatbot and get a response from a tutor.

Let's look at an example question from a Listening test:

For each question, there will be a list of accepted answers. Here they are:

7.   business centre / business center

Both of these are accepted, as they are both the correct spelling ('centre' is British, 'center' is American). However, 'the business centre' is incorrect, because that is three words. 'bussiness centre' is incorrect, because that is not the correct spelling of 'business'.

8.  4.30pm / 4.30 pm / 4.30p.m. / 4.30 p.m. / 4:30pm / 4:30 pm / 4:30p.m. / 4:30  p.m. / four-thirty pm / four-thirty p.m. / four thirty pm / four thirty p.m. / 16:30

All of these variations would be accepted. 'four-thirty pm' is not quite three words, even though 'pm' is a separate lexeme, this would be fine. However, the best way to write this in Standard English is:

4:30 p.m. (American English)    or    4.30 p.m. (British English)

9. 200 / 200.00 / two hundred

Writing '£200' or '200 pounds' would be incorrect, because the £ is already in the question. Always read the question carefully.

10. town hall

There is only one possibility here, nothing else would work.

The audio said "... you will be able to collect it from the large town hall in the centre of the city...". The word 'large' is not an important or 'key' part of the meaning of the answer, so you don't need to include it. In fact, you can't include it, as that would put your answer over the word limit!