Do you need help practicing for the IELTS test? Do you want feedback on you IELTS writing skill? Do you want to improve your band score? The Virtual Writing Tutor now offers a series of free IELTS practice tests.
8 IELTS Practice Tests
There are eight tests to choose from: 4 x Task 1 tests, 4 x Task 2 tests. (Don’t worry. We’ll be adding more soon.)
Task 1 Practice Tests
Task 1 tests are academic writing tasks in which you have 20 minutes to write about a chart or a graph. The first IELTS task 1 practice test is about men and women in further education.
The second IELTS practice test is about radio and television audiences.
Task 2 Practice Tests
Task 2 tests ask you to write an opinion about either cars and alternative transportation or nuclear technology. You have 40 minutes to write your essay.
Read the prompt with the question and write 250 words before the timer reaches zero.
Sample IELTS Task 2 Test 1 Text
Try this Task 2 Test 1 sample: https://virtualwritingtutor.com/ielts/t2t1/
One hundred and twelve years after their introduction, 29 million vehicles filled British roads by the year 2000. This figure tells us two things: Britons love their cars, and they will continue to want to buy and drive their cars unless something is done to change attitudes. Obviously, the number of cars on the road cannot continue to grow indefinitely. Alternative types of transport are needed immediately because the excessive number of cars negatively impacts the environment and people’s health, but preventing people from buying and owning cars is certainly not the answer.
Automobiles with internal combustion engines are a threat to the environment. First, cars pollute the air with fine particulate matter and carbon dioxide because of the fossil fuels they burn. Without a doubt, a switch to low-emission and zero-emission cars such as hybrid engines or battery-powered vehicles would help to clean up the air.
Worse still, cars destroy natural habitat that wildlife depends on to survive. By making it easier to commute great distances each day, cars make it possible for more people to live on the outskirts of cities and commute, creating urban sprawl. Consequently, when people move to the suburbs where land is cheaper, the development of low-density housing destroys the natural habitat of wild animals.
What’s more, cars ruin our health. When people are cooped up in their cars for long periods of time instead of standing, walking, or running where they need to go, car culture prevents people from getting the exercise they need. Long commutes lead to fast food because people have less time to cook and enjoy a meal. Obviously, the switch to electric vehicles won’t mitigate these negative effects of car ownership. Cheap land and free access to roadways create urban sprawl. The solution then is to add tolls to highways. The money collected can be used to subsidize public transportation and to create green spaces.
The upshot of all this is that cleaner cars, tolls on highways, and meaningful investment in public transportation and urban green spaces will likely limit or reverse the recent growth of the number of cars on the road in Britain. Britons will come to prefer living in the city, using public transportation and urban green spaces to get to work. We are at a crossroads. Without question, a system of incentives and disincentives will reduce the desire to own a car. While it is tempting to want to legislate against car ownership, direct forms of coercion will only invite rebellion and inevitably fail.
Sample IELTS Task 2 Test 2 Text
Try this Task 2 Test 2 sample: https://virtualwritingtutor.com/ielts/t2t2/test
There is no doubt that nuclear technology has been an enormous benefit to the world. It ended World War II with the first and last use of nuclear weapons against an enemy, and the threat of a future nuclear attack ensures that World War II stays ended. Today, nuclear technology furnishes us with smoke detectors in our modern homes, radioisotopes for our modern medicine, and clean energy to run our modern economy. Despite the danger of catastrophic failures of nuclear reactors and the risk of nuclear war, the virtues of nuclear technology clearly outweigh any drawbacks.
Indeed, nuclear technology is somewhat worthwhile. Without the tiny flake of radioactive substance in every smoke detector, countless homes, businesses, and lives would be lost. Fires would burn everywhere and misery would multiply if we were to allow ourselves to be persuaded to rid ourselves of nuclear technology by a successful anti-nuclear campaign. Furthermore, as a society without radioisotopes in nuclear medicine as contrasts in routines scans, diseases would be missed and loved ones would die. Without radiation therapy, cancer would return more often after surgery and the misery of chemotherapy would be our line of defense. Finally, the lights would go out and food would spoil without nuclear power facilities. To replace the loss of safe, cheap, and limitless electricity generation, we would have to turn to fossil fuels, poisoning our air and destabilizing our climate even more than we are doing currently.
Nevertheless, critics are quick to point out that we would be better off without nuclear technology. They point to the Fukushima nuclear power plant fire, explosion, and contamination of the surrounding countryside. Opponents of nuclear energy also point to the nuclear waste that has to be safely stored indefinitely. Forever is a long time to store nuclear waste, admittedly. Nuclear war seems a constant threat since all it takes is for a hotheaded terrorist with access to a bomb or a fit of madness in one of the presidents of Russia or America to end civilization with a nuclear apocalypse. Granted, nuclear technology is extremely dangerous because the catastrophic failure of just one of the safety mechanisms we have devised for it can ruin us completely. However, there is no going back. The genie will not return to its bottle. We must learn to live with the dangers of nuclear technology, using past disasters and simulations of the future to develop better safeguards. Complete denuclearization is wholly unrealistic and will never happen.
In conclusion, despite some major drawbacks, nuclear technology is much more beneficial than it is detrimental. With safety in mind, nuclear energy remains our best hope for a reduction of the use of the fossil fuels that poison our climate and funds the religious extremism of Middle Eastern terrorism. Also, nuclear medicine is indispensable for disease detection and treatment. Finally, who would wish to live in a completely denuclearized apartment building without smoke detectors? It is a deathtrap. Rather by focusing on nuclear safety instead of the unrealistic fantasy of complete denuclearization, we will continue to benefit from nuclear technology long into the future.
Self-scoring IELTS Practice Test
Here is how it works.
The Virtual Writing Tutor uses latent semantic analysis and proximity detecting artificial intelligence to approximate your band score. The feedback will help you improve. How?
Go to the IELTS practice test page. Choose from the 4 texts offered. The link to the practice tests (1) is on the navigation bar.
Start writing. You will notice the chart on the left (2). On the right, you will see a text area with a timer (3) and word counter. Write your text in the space provided.
When you have finished writing, click “Finished.” The system will calculate your approximate band score for you. If you don’t finish in time, the system will submit what you have written automatically when the timer reaches zero.
Improve your IELTS Band Score
The system uses artificial intelligence to measure the quality of your writing and calculate an approximate band score (6) for you. The feedback below (7) helps you make improvements to your writing so that you can improve your band score the next time.
You will receive feedback in the form of scores and messages on the following areas of your writing.
- Writing fluency
- Writing style
- Organization
- Topic development
- Language accuracy
Writing fluency is how much you can write under pressure.
Writing style is how long your sentences are, how well you vary their lengths, your avoidance of cliches and exclamation marks.
Organization is about how many paragraphs you write, if you write an introduction and conclusion, and if you take a strong stance and defend it.
Topic development is how well you address the topic, how deeply you develop that topic, and if you have the vocabulary needed to discuss it with precision.
Get your IELTS Band Score now!
Get More Help with IELTS and TOEFL
Read my article about online grammar courses for IELTS TOEFL. If you want feedback from a human, I have found the 3 best IELTS essay graders on Fiverr. For the IELTS vocabulary courses online, click here.
For a list of frequently asked questions about IELTS and TOEFL, read my article.
For more writing topics to practice with, check out these 240 IELTS task 2 writing prompts.
