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.
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