IELTS exam comprises of four modules which entail a variety of question sets. The Reading and Listening modules have somewhat similar type of questions, but for the Writing and Speaking modules, the question are different.
In the Reading module, the students appearing for the academic exam get three passages out of which 40 questions are drafted. The type of questions can be choosing the correct headings, multiple choice answers, fill in the blanks, complete the summary, judge whether the statement given is true or false or not given in the passage, short questions, labeling the diagrams or matching the information given from the paragraph. The question type for the General Training candidate also remains the same but they only get one passage and a few advertisements or short passages in commercial context.
Most of these question types are also used in the Listening module. In this module, mainly the questions are in the format of fill ups. The student might be asked to complete the sentence in no more than three words or two words or may be just one word. Multiple choice questions are another popular question set in this module. At times the students might have to pick one correct answer out of a list of 3 or 4 options. It could even be picking up 2-3 correct answers out of a list of more than 4 options. Diagram labeling, marking a map and short-answer type questions are also often included in the 40 questions.
In the Writing module, the students appearing for the Academic exam get a graph or a picture to describe in a minimum of 150 words. In the General Training exam the students get a letter to write which might of a formal, informal or semi-formal nature. Along with that, a statement is given to the students, for which, a 250 word essay has to be written. These statements could be argumentative in nature, discussion based, problem-solving, or asking for causes-effects etc.
In the Speaking module, first some introductory questions are asked to the student, which are later followed by a cue card. One minute is given to the student to prepare for the cue card and then he is required to speak on the cue card for two minutes. Cue cards are quite general in nature. These might be about favorite movie, actor, TV series, politician, family member or situations like happiest moment, decision made by you, interesting conversation with someone etc. After that a few follow up questions based on the cue card are asked.