Minutes, parts and word counts for every version — straight from the British Council documents, not from hearsay.
| Component | General | Advanced | for Teachers | for Teens |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core (Grammar & Vocabulary) | 25 min | 25 min | 25 min | 25 min |
| Reading | 35 min | 60 min | 35 min | 30 min |
| Listening | 40 min | 30 min | 40 min | 55 min |
| Writing | 50 min | 45 min | 50 min | 50 min |
| Speaking | 12 min | 10 min | 12 min | 15 min |
| Total | ~2 h 40 | ~2 h 50 | ~2 h 40 | ~2 h 55 |
for Teachers is identical to General in structure and timing — only the context of the tasks changes.
General has four tasks: a short message or dialogue where you pick out one detail (a phone number, a time, a place); four speakers to match against six pieces of information; a dialogue between a man and a woman with four questions, where you decide whether each opinion was expressed by him, her or both; and a monologue with two questions about the speaker's attitude.
Advanced has five short recordings with one question each; three monologues with two questions each; the same man/woman/both task but with six statements; and two long monologues answered in a table, where the information does not follow the order of the options.
General has four parts in 50 minutes, and the official guide suggests how to spend them:
| Part | Task | Length | Suggested time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reply to five messages with single words (no sentence writing) | 1-5 words | under 3 min |
| 2 | A short text with personal information | 20-30 words | under 7 min |
| 3 | Three replies on a social-network style page | 30-40 words each | under 10 min |
| 4 | Two emails: the informal one first, then the formal one | 40-50 and 120-150 words | the rest |
The most common mistake is in Part 2: going over 30 words and filling it with errors.
Advanced has three parts in 45 minutes: three 30-40 word answers, a 120-150 word formal email and a 180-220 word article. for Teens replaces the last part with a 220-250 word for-and-against essay.
General and for Teachers, 12 minutes: three personal questions at 30 seconds each; describe a photo plus two questions at 45 seconds; compare two photos plus two more questions, also 45; and an abstract topic with one minute to prepare and two minutes to answer three questions in a row.
Advanced, 10 minutes: describe and compare at 45 seconds per question; an abstract topic with one minute to prepare and two to speak; a 90-second presentation with one minute to prepare it; and a final 45-second follow-up question.
Each skill is marked 0 to 50 and gets its own CEFR level; your overall level is the rounded average of the four. The exact cut scores are published — see the General vs Advanced comparison, which lists them skill by skill.
Source: British Council — «Aptis ESOL General / Advanced / for Teachers / for Teens Test format overview 2023» and the April 2023 candidate guides.
Aptis® is a registered trademark of the British Council. This page is an independent project and is not affiliated with the British Council.
All five parts with the real number of questions and the official timings, plus writing and speaking marked by AI. Free: you sign in with your Google account, which is what saves your score for each part. No test repeats another one's questions.
Start with the first one for your variant: the next opens when you finish all five parts.
Start the General mock →