How we score your speaking
Every score in Lingo Copilot Speaking is an AI estimate for practice, not an official score. We record your answer, measure pronunciation and fluency from the audio with a speech-assessment engine, transcribe what you said, judge the content against the task, and put the result on the scale the real test publishes: IELTS bands, the PTE 10–90 scale or the TOEFL iBT 1–6 band. This page describes the scoring that runs in the app today.
Checked against the app's scoring code on 7 October 2026
What happens to each answer
Recording and a speech check
Your answer is recorded in the browser or the Android app. An answer with no speech in it is not scored, because speech-to-text systems can invent words from silence.
Transcription
Speech-to-text models turn the recording into text. For the live IELTS examiner, the conversation's transcript is cross-checked with the speech-assessment engine's own transcript.
Speech assessment from the audio
A specialist speech-assessment engine analyses the recording itself: pronunciation of each word and sound, fluency, speaking rate in words per minute, and the number and length of pauses. British English is the reference accent for IELTS and PTE, American English for TOEFL.
Content and language
Tasks with a fixed answer (PTE Read Aloud, Repeat Sentence and Answer Short Question, TOEFL Listen and Repeat) are scored by comparing your words with the expected words. Open tasks (an IELTS answer, PTE Describe Image or Retell Lecture, a TOEFL interview answer) are judged by a large language model against the test's published criteria, with the speech measurements as input.
The test's scale, then feedback
The criterion scores are combined the way described below for each test, and the same analysis produces the written feedback: what lowered the estimate and what to change next time.
IELTS Speaking
IELTS examiners rate four criteria, which carry equal weight: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation. The official band descriptors describe each criterion from band 0 to band 9, and IELTS reports the Speaking score in whole or half bands.
For each answer, the speech-assessment engine gives an IELTS-scale estimate for all four criteria from your recording and transcript. The language model writes the feedback, checks that the answer is on topic, and supplies a criterion only when the speech engine returns none for it. Very fluent speech (at least 130 words per minute with few, short pauses) is never placed below band 6 for Fluency and Coherence.
Each criterion is shown as a whole band. Your overall estimate is the average of the four criteria, rounded to the nearest half band. Answers that do not attempt the question (off-topic, only filler words, or asking for a repeat) count as band 3 in the average, so skipping a question lowers the estimate as it would in the test.
The free evaluation, practice sessions and mock tests all score the four criteria this way. The free IELTS Speaking scorer uses it on one Part 1 answer, which is a much smaller sample than a full test.
Sources: IELTS Speaking band descriptors (PDF) · IELTS scoring in detail
PTE Academic and PTE Core
PTE speaking tasks are scored on traits: content, pronunciation and oral fluency, plus appropriacy for PTE Core's Respond to a Situation. Pronunciation and oral fluency (0–5 each) come from the speech-assessment engine. If an answer scores zero for content, its pronunciation and fluency are set to zero too, so a fluent but unrelated answer earns nothing.
Pearson does not publish how trait points become the 10–90 Speaking score. Our estimate takes each answer's trait scores as a share of their maximum, averages them over the attempt and maps the result onto 10–90. It is shown as a range: ±5 for a full mock test and ±10 for the quick score, because three answers measure less. Personal Introduction is not scored, as in the test.
| Task | Content | How content is judged | Also scored |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read Aloud | Words read correctly | Your words compared with the passage | Pronunciation, oral fluency (0–5) |
| Repeat Sentence | 0–3 | Words repeated in the right order | Pronunciation, oral fluency (0–5) |
| Describe Image | 0–6 (PTE Core 0–5) | Language model, against the item's key points | Pronunciation, oral fluency (0–5) |
| Retell Lecture | 0–6 | Language model, against the item's key points | Pronunciation, oral fluency (0–5) |
| Summarize Group Discussion | 0–6 | Language model, against the item's key points | Pronunciation, oral fluency (0–5) |
| Respond to a Situation | 0–6 (PTE Core: appropriacy 0–3) | Language model, against the item's key points | Pronunciation, oral fluency (0–5) |
| Answer Short Question | Vocabulary 0–1 | Exact answer, or a language-model check for an equivalent answer | None |
The free PTE Read Aloud scorer uses the same Read Aloud scoring on one answer.
Sources: Pearson: PTE Academic scoring · Pearson: PTE Core scoring
TOEFL iBT (2026 format)
The 2026 TOEFL iBT speaking section has two tasks: Listen and Repeat (seven sentences) and Take an Interview (four questions). Each answer gets a score from 0 to 5.
Listen and Repeat is scored by how exactly you repeat the sentence: the type and number of differences from the original, with the speech engine's pronunciation score deciding whether an exact repeat earns the top score. Take an Interview answers get one overall 0–5 score from the language model, which reads your transcript together with the pronunciation and fluency measurements, your speaking rate and your pauses; an answer that does not address the question scores 0. You also see feedback scores for fluency, intelligibility, language use and organisation.
ETS does not publish how item scores become the 1–6 band. Our estimate maps the average of your 0–5 item scores onto 1–6 in half-band steps (an average of 0 is band 1, an average of 5 is band 6) and shows the matching CEFR level.
Sources: ETS: understanding TOEFL iBT scores · ETS: TOEFL iBT speaking rubrics (PDF)
Why these are estimates, not official scores
- Official scores come only from the tests themselves: certified IELTS examiners, and the automated scoring systems Pearson and ETS run under test conditions. Their exact scoring models and weightings are not public, so no practice tool can reproduce them.
- We are not affiliated with, endorsed or approved by IDP, the British Council, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, Pearson or ETS, and our questions are original practice items, not real test content.
- Your recording is made on your own device and microphone, often with background noise; test centres use controlled equipment.
- A practice session is a sample. One answer, or a short quick score, says less than a full test, which is why the PTE estimate is shown as a range.
What data the scores use
A score uses your recorded audio, its transcript, the question or reference text you answered and the speech measurements described above. To produce them, audio and text are processed by our service providers for speech-to-text, language models, speech assessment and the real-time audio connection in live sessions. Our Privacy Policy lists them.
Recordings from your practice and tests are kept in private cloud storage so you can see your results and replay your answers. The free no-signup scorers do not store the recording. Our Privacy Policy has the full details.
Limitations you should know
- Speech recognition makes more mistakes with strong accents, quiet or distant microphones and background noise. A misheard word can lower content, vocabulary or grammar estimates that you deserved.
- Language-model judgments of open answers can vary slightly between two attempts of the same answer.
- No human reviews your score. Treat a single estimate as a direction, and look at the trend over several tests.
- We have not published a study comparing our estimates with official results, so we do not claim an accuracy figure.
- Use the feedback, not just the number: the criterion that is lowest in most of your answers is usually the one to work on.
Questions about our scores
Is my Lingo Copilot score an official IELTS, PTE or TOEFL score?
No. It is an AI estimate for practice, on the criteria and scale each test publishes. Only the official tests give official scores.
Why might my real test score be different?
The official scoring models are not public, your practice recording is made on your own microphone, and a practice session is a smaller sample than the real test. Use the estimate as a direction and the feedback to decide what to practise.
Does my accent lower my score?
The tests assess how clear and easy to understand you are, not whether you sound like a native speaker. Our speech engine compares your pronunciation with a reference accent (British English for IELTS and PTE, American English for TOEFL), and strong accents can cause transcription mistakes, which is one of the limitations above.
Does a person check my answers?
No. Scores and feedback are produced automatically, as described on this page.
Who makes Lingo Copilot Speaking?
Tech Ale OÜ, a technology company registered in Tallinn, Estonia. The About page has the company details and contact.
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