Planning around score requirements for study or work plans

Somebody tells you the score you need, you study for six weeks, and then you find out that the number was last year's, or that one skill has its own minimum, or that your result stops counting before you apply. Planning from a requirement you have not checked is the most avoidable mistake in the whole process.

One plain statement before anything else: this site cannot advise on visas, admissions or job applications, and nothing here should be read that way. Requirements differ between organisations and change over time. What follows is a method for planning your study once you have the correct figures from the people who set them.

Get the requirement from the source

Institutions, employers and authorities set their own requirements, and they revise them. A forum post, a message from a friend or a third-party summary can be out of date, or can describe a different course or category. Use them to learn what to ask, not as the answer.

Go to the organisation's own page, or write to them, and get these points in writing:

• Which test, and which version of it, do they accept?
• What is the minimum overall score?
• Is there also a minimum for each skill, and what is it?
• Can results from more than one sitting be combined, or must everything come from one?
• How long does a result stay valid, and by what date must it reach them?

Save the page or the reply with the date. Requirements change, so check again before you book.

Measure the gap

Suppose, as an illustration only, that the requirement is 65 overall with no skill below 58. Your baseline mocks give an estimated 60 overall, with Speaking at 54 and the other three skills between 60 and 65. The gap is five points overall, and Speaking sits below its own floor and pulls the total down, so Speaking gets the largest share of your time.

Remember that practice scores are estimates. What a practice score can and cannot tell you explains why one number should never carry the whole decision.

Turn the gap into weeks

No formula converts weeks into points. Use your own trend instead: take a mock, study for two or three weeks, take another. If your estimate moved from 57 to 60 in three weeks, you have a rough rate of a point a week. The rate may not hold, so plan with a cushion: five points at a point a week is five weeks, so allow seven.

Then work backwards from the deadline:

1. Write down the last date the result must reach the organisation.
2. Subtract the time results take to arrive. Check the current figure when you book.
3. Subtract a spare slot for a retake, allowing for how soon you can sit again and when test dates are available near you.
4. The date you reach is your latest sensible test date. Count back from it by your weeks of study, cushion included, and that is when you must start.

Here is the same method with made-up figures. The deadline is 20 weeks from today, results take about a week to arrive (check the real figure), and you want room for a retake four weeks after the first sitting. Twenty minus one minus four leaves week 15 as your latest sensible test date. With seven weeks of study, you need to start by the end of week 8, and any earlier start is a bonus.

If the start date has already passed, you have found out now rather than in the last week, and you can still change the plan.

Where this site fits

We can help you practise and give AI-estimated feedback on your answers; the practice tests on this site are for that. We cannot tell you which score you need, whether a particular score satisfies a rule, or whether a result will be accepted. Only the organisation can, so ask it first and plan second.

Your next step is one sentence: "I need 65 overall and no skill below 58, valid on the application date, confirmed on their website today." If you cannot write your own version yet, finish the questions above before opening a study plan. When you can, choose between a four-week plan and an eight-week plan.