What the exam asks
You need to manage four sections in a fixed order:
- Reading: about 30 minutes, 50 items, multistage adaptive
- Listening: about 29 minutes, 47 items, multistage adaptive
- Writing: 23 minutes, 12 items, linear
- Speaking: about 8 minutes, 11 items, linear
The exam expects you to:
- understand how the routing module works
- protect accuracy early enough to reach the harder second module
- use time well across mixed task types
- take useful notes without writing too much
- answer every item, because selected-response questions have no penalty for guessing
- read your final report correctly: section bands, overall band, CEFR level, comparable 0–120 score, and MyBest scores
Core ideas
How multistage adaptivity works
In Reading and Listening, everyone starts with a routing module. Your performance there sends you to:
- an easier second module, or
- a harder second module
Only the harder second module gives access to the top bands, especially 5.5–6. So the routing module is not “just the first half”; it is your gateway to the highest score range.
ETS does not fully publish the exact item split and timing inside each adaptive module, so treat any finer module-by-module breakdown as approximate. What is fixed for you as a test taker is the section total, the task types, and the need to keep moving.